Blood Moon Rising
by Lullabyes
Summary: Saya isn't healing. She is haunted. Set thirty years after the series. Saya struggles to come to terms with a world devoid of Diva. Old ghosts must be laid to rest, and new threats defeated. Smut, suspense, slice-of-life, supernatural elements. HajixSaya.
1. Act I: Storytime

**_A/N:_**

 _...Why am I still in this fandom?_

 _I have no clue, beyond the fact that this will always be the only series I feel the itch to_ write _about. That, and the best cure for RL writer's block is playing in the sandbox of nostalgia with someone else's toys._

 _The premise of this fic is very mystical-fristical. A lot of Okinawan lore, Norse mythology, and horrific abuse of Jungian symbols. Beyond that, mostly just my crackpot theories about Chiropterans and their weirdass mating practices. A lot of slice-of-life and soapy drama and angst and conflict too, centered around Saya and her family, as well as her budding romance with Haji. As for an overarching plot - well, it's better I not give too much away at this point._

 _All locations in this fic, unless otherwise specified, are from the actual Okinawa, which I had the immense pleasure of visiting in 2014. Any errors and touristy stupidities are mine._

 _Please don't sue for the story title, which is also shared by an atrocious(ly fun) B-grade horror movie about zombies._

 _ **Rating:** Hard R, for violence, squick and sex. Will post more specific CWs in chapters as they are posted._

 _No idea how much readership this piece will get - but it's gnawing at my brain, and I am determined to pen it down. Updates will be hella sporadic, given the dramafest that is RL._

 _Hope y'all enjoy. Reviews are delicious and will keep this crazy lady motivated! :)_

 _I do not own Blood+ and play about as nice with its characters as_ _Jun'ichi Fujisaku did. Which is not nice at all._

* * *

" _I want a trouble-maker for a lover, blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame, who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate, who burns like fire on the rushing sea."_

― _Rumi_

* * *

 ** _CW: Gore, mentions of rape, induced miscarriages, angst. (I know. I wasted no time.)_**

* * *

Anyway.

Gird up your loins. Dust off those brainpans. Pour yourselves an appletini—or five.

It's storytime.

Many lifetimes ago— _my_ lifetimes, not yours—in a world not so different from this one, Chiropterans lived. And flew. And fought. And fucked. And frittered away their time, in ways not unlike your own.

Okay. Full disclosure: I speak facetiously.

I _have_ to. You wouldn't enjoy storytime, unless the stories reminded you of _you_. That's what you like, right? Figments of fantasy, but the meat of the tale must be human. It must whet your appetite in all the right ways, so it becomes _your_ story, as much as anyone else's.

You can be the damsel. The knight in shining armor. You can even be the villain, if it blows your dress up.

Hey, I'm all for it. Blowing up dresses. Blowing bits and bobs. Whatever shows you a good time.

But I'll be honest. I'm flattering you by speaking this story in a human tongue. Except this isn't a story about human triumphs or frailties. It's a story of Chiropterans. And in the world of Chiropterans, you would be little more than an aperitif. Or maybe a toasty nightcap.

Pick your metaphor, and pray it doesn't poison you.

Anyway.

Many lifetimes ago: Chiropterans jived. Swived. Thrived. In those days, to be born a Chiropteran was not too different from being a godling, in some war-torn land you'd like to pretend is as distant from your reality as the stars.

The skies were alive with the beat of their wings. Their castles towered in the mountains like cathedrals of ivory. Gold were their turrets, and marble their halls. They even had daily baths of milk and honey, and baby-blood smoothies.

I know. Obnoxiously _extra_ for these gluten-free, sustainable, thrift-shoppy times.

Many lifetimes ago, humans lived too. Not too different from humans today. Whiny. Weak. Warm, though—which is why Chiropterans kept them around. Always good to have a snack nearby.

In those days—these days?—humans outnumbered Chiropterans. A ratio of fifty-to-one. But Chiropterans were stronger. Not just a matter of physical potency. Chiropterans were tight-knit. Highly social. All that bullshit about vampires being eccentric loners holed up in haunted castles is just that: _Bullshit_.

As a species, the Chiroptera have always been communal; an intimacy that is rooted in necessity as much as kinship. Between great houses, Queens shared resources. They shared armies. They shared blood.

Humans, conversely, were a selfish bunch. Always squabbling among themselves in feuds, or struck by epidemics. Or natural disasters. Or dancing plagues.

Pathetic little things.

 _What_? I said I'd be honest.

But humans could be useful. In addition to being tasty snacks, they made great worker ants and better cannon fodder. So Chiropterans tolerated their not-infrequent stupidities.

In the shadow of their castles, humans built temples. They swore fealty to Chiropterans as their deities. They paid them tributes of silver and gold. They revered them with songs, with stories, and, yes...

With human sacrifices.

I use the word _sacrifice_ snidely. In those days—these days?—to be chosen as a sacrifice for a Chiropteran was the highest honor. Think banging Beyoncé. Or a picnic with Luke Skywalker. To be sacrificed, you see, was to be reborn as a Chevalier. To serve as the banneret and bed-warmer of the Chiropteran Queens.

Because that, my doves, is the crux of this tale.

The Queens.

Always, two Queens presided over each great Chiropteran house. A matched pair, yet complete opposites. One Queen was born of fire: red eyes, hot heart, the irresistible song of battle in her blood. A warrior. The other was born of ice: blue eyes, cold hands, a voice like a lungful of rime in winter. A priestess.

Both from the same womb, and held to the same esteem. But their duties were separate.

The Red Queen oversaw all matters related to conquest. She drafted strategies in war-rooms with her generals. She led her troops to battle. She welcomed victorious heroes with wreaths of blue roses—and executed turncoats with the bite of her fangs.

The Blue Queen's duties were more spiritual. Sequestered in her temple, she drank elixirs in toast to the Old Ones, tasting prophecies in her dreams. At the tip of dawn, she sang prayers for a bloody, bountiful harvest. At night, she held court for commoners and nobles alike, so she could read their future or utterly change its course.

Ah! What bliss those days were! Worshiping at the dainty feet of one Queen by daybreak, ensconced in the other's feral embrace by night...

What? Didn't I mention? I was a Chevalier in the Queens' court! Handpicked to serve the most illustrious Chiropteran house in the realm.

Where, you ask? Well, the location doesn't matter at this point. But what's a story without a setting? Especially a fairytale, meant to conjure up uniquely human fantasies of courtly love and historic pageantry? For that, a location is _wesentlich_! _El elemento necesario_!

So let's imagine this particular tale as taking place on the Faroe Islands.

Hm? Never heard of them?

 _Tsk_. Kids these days.

The Faroe, or Føroyar, is an archipelago at the icy margins between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic. A realm of pale skies, dark cliffs and wintry tundra. No barren wasteland by any means, but nothing like the tropical paradise where you envisioned this tale would begin, either.

No need to be shy: I know what you were expecting. A familiar island at the fringes of Japan. A familiar Queen, her power wrapped in girlish delicacy to remind you—remind _herself_ —of her ties to humanity.

So where is she, you ask? Don't worry; we'll get to her soon enough! She's with her family as we speak. With her Chevalier—the one man who wears brooding, secretive romance the way a wolf wears its fur. Smoothly unruffled in day-to-day life, but prickly and dangerous when disturbed.

Not that you _should_ be thinking of him—disturbed, dressed or undressed! That man is spoken for! Try to put him from your mind. He and his mistress are _fine_ , I promise you. They are even, dare I say it, _happy_. As happy as they can be, given the odds against them.

It is more than most Queens or Chevaliers got, in the days of yore.

Speaking of days of yore, where was I?

Ah, yes! A young lad in Føroyar, strong of bones and flaxen of hair. It was my eighteenth year, and I was chosen from my village to serve in the Chiropteran Queens' court. As I've mentioned, this was the highest honor.

I was frightened, to be sure. But determined to prove my mettle. It was a matter of Wyrd.

To you, the word translates into fate or destiny. But Wyrd is more complex than that. It is not a state of being, but of _becoming_. You can bend it, or change it to your will. But you cannot escape it.

As a boy, I had to courageously face whatever my Wyrd meted out to me. At the time, I figured I was meant to be a Chevalier to a Queen, the most celebrated of lives, and to fall in battle an eternity afterward, that most celebrated of deaths.

I did not.

My Wyrd would prove as wayward as the roads I walked upon.

I suppose it seems strange to you, that Chiropterans would so disparage humans, yet choose Chevaliers from amongst them. But as I mentioned, humans had their uses. Have you heard of the _devshirme_ system, used in the 14th Century by the Ottoman Empire? The blood tax? No?

Well—go on and google it. I'll wait.

Now, I'm not saying the Chiropterans' conscription process was _exactly_ the same. But there were key similarities. It arose as a means to forge ties with the human across the kingdom. A means for conquest, really, without the messy business of war.

Still. A blood tax is a blood tax. And it demands that life be paid with life.

Of the boys assembled, only a worthy handful were chosen. The rest— _rejects_ —were put to the sword.

Barbaric, you say? Not really. Had they lived, the boys would've led bleak lives of exile. They would've been driven from village to village, stoned and starved, and died a lonely death on some frozen spit of land. Only fitting, really.

In those days—these days?—only the strong survived.

The chosen boys were taken to the castle. There, under the tutelage of the greatest scholars and warriors, they were taught everything from the military arts of horsemanship, weaponry, strategy, politics, to the courtly arts of music, rhetoric, literature and dance. Oftentimes they served as squires for Chevaliers; other times as cup-bearers for Princess-Regents. Their schooling typically lasted for four winters. About the equivalent of an undergrad degree at a fancy private college.

Then came graduation day. _The Red Glory_ , as it was known.

It fell on the month known as Gormánuður. Slaughter Month. Its equivalent today would be somewhere between October and November. The boys' parents were invited to the castle, to watch proudly as their sons were paraded on horseback through the square, bathed and perfumed and garbed in the costliest finery. There was music, and wine, and floor-shows, and floozies.

Not for the boys, mind you! They were kept unsoiled— _virginal_ —for the occasion. They were well-cared for and well-fed. But any hoochie coochie rum pum pum pum was out of the question. Their wedding-tackle—like everything else—was reserved purely for another's use.

Their Queen's.

Ah, I remember it well! It was a blue morning, the air shimmering with darts of cold sunlight. My cloak was made of dyed sheepskin, both caramel and gold. My woolen tunic was green, my gloves of the softest calfskin, my brown leather boots polished to a shine.

Forget Blahniks or Doc Martens. Those boots were _pop, pop, poppin'—_

Anyway.

The lucky boys, myself included, dismounted at the gates of the great hall. We were ushered inside, to much fanfare and festivity. I still remember how brightly the torches shone. The place was filled with the chiming of goblets and the burble of voices. Music—lyre, langeleik, flute and drums accompanying the sweet contralto of a boy's voice—unfurled in the background.

At the end of the hall, on a raised dais of gold, heaped in quilts and fur-trimmed pillows, sat the two Queens.

 _Ah_! How to describe my first glimpse of them?

The Red Queen glowed like an ember of pure heat. Eyes and mouth painfully red, her whole body radiating firepower and fury. The Blue Queen, meanwhile, glittered like frost at the sea. Her face was without color and her eyes so blue, strangely hypnotic, strangely haunting.

A matched pair—each finishing a sentence the other began. Each as naked as her hatching day, and as lovely as a fever-dream.

It was there, on that dais, that the boys were summoned. Lambs to the slaughter, tender and trembling. Each one was gathered into the arms of his Queen. He was shown every exquisite attention. Given the first and most fantastic ride of his life. And then bitten at the height of it, drained to the edge of death before the Queen blessed him with her own blood.

Blessed him with eternal life.

 _Ewwww_ , you whine! The boys were fucked and fed on in front of everyone?!

Well, I _did_ warn you. This isn't a tale for human sensibilities. A Chiropteran Queen thinks nothing of being nude, or bathing, or copulating, or sleeping, or performing any function in the presence of her court. We mean less to her than a pet canary or a footstool.

If you're repulsed beyond words, turn away. If you're intrigued, stick around.

The tale gets raunchier. And bloodier.

Now where was I? Oh right! One by one, each boy was sampled and slaughtered. As I recall, there were six of us altogether. Three for the Red Queen. Three for the Blue.

So it was every thirty years. So it had been for centuries before.

Yes, I know. This fairtytale is ass-backwards. As a rule, it's the _princesses_ who are the virgin sacrifices. Pure of heart, pristine of blood. Yahta yahta. But a Queen is an entirely different creature. You serve _her_ , not the other way around. And her power cannot be sullied by one little prick, any more than a teaspoon of sugar can turn tea into tequila.

She'd laugh at you for believing so. Or slit your throat. You'd deserve it, either way.

A variety of Chevaliers in a Queen's bed were no oddity, either. They merely sweetened her day, or spiced up her night. Blue Queens preferred silver-tongued bards, or clever-fingered minstrels. Men who could sweet-talk their way out of duels, out of debts, into drinks, or into pussy. Or, hell, talk _through_ pussy, because that right there is the mark of a true connoisseur, and Queens don't suffer incompetence lightly.

Oh, the Blue Queen might let you live even if you displeased her, to slink away in shame; they're soft-hearted as a rule.

But the Red Queen? ¡ _Dios mío! О_ _мой_ _Бог_! The Red Queen would eat you alive, and spit out your bones. They are the pinnacle of wildness. Not just aggressive, but _carnivorous_. They prefer their lovers the same: possessing a nature predisposed to famine and frost. Lean and hard and silent, with a spine that bends to nobody but them, and eyes that bite as coldly as their teeth.

I could tell you which Queen's Chevalier I was.

I could also tell you, by the end, it didn't matter.

* * *

The trouble didn't begin with us.

It came with the humans. Specifically, it came with six brothers.

Funny. The standard fairtytale number is three, isn't it? Bad things always come in threes.

But the number six holds its own dark symbolism. Six, lauded by Pythagoreans as the perfect number. Six, the Biblical mark of Man. Six, the number of bindings used to create Gleipnir—the enchanted leash that restrained the savage Fenrir Wolf.

For if he broke free, it would herald the _Ragnarök_.

The end of the world.

Anyway.

Six brothers. Their names are lost to time and posterity. So I will call them Frick Frack Diddly Dack Patty Wack—

I'm _joking_. Come back! The tale isn't over, and I'm enjoying the audience.

The six brothers—whose names I shall tactfully omit—were as cunning as they were cruel. They had grown weary of toiling beneath their Chiropteran masters. So they set into motion a scheme, whose ripples spread far and wide across the land. The ripples I still feel to this day.

Neither foolish nor brave enough to stage a revolt—for those periodically occurred, and were quashed by the Queens with the same indifference as stomping on an ant—the brother's chose to overthrow their sovereigns from the inside. To attack the belly of the beast, so to speak.

So they insinuated themselves into the court as Chevaliers.

Once there, the brothers were fast favorites. Each one as accomplished at wordplay as at swordplay. Light on his toes in a dance, yet honeyed of voice in a ballad. Also? Big in the breeches, with enough stamina to make even a Queen swoon with exhaustion in the bedroom.

I imagine each had plenty of opportunities, if he chose, to cut out his Queen's heart as she slumbered in his arms.

But simple assassination was not the brothers' aim. Nor was destroying an entire dynasty of immortals.

 _No_.

They planned to subjugate every Queen in the land. To replace them, as the new masters of humanity.

They began with sowing seeds of mistrust and obfuscation. Turning humans against Chiropterans. Chevaliers against Chevaliers. And finally, Queens against Queens.

Understand me: it did not happen overnight. In those days—these days?—vendettas could take a lifetime.

A lifetime to catch fire, and a lifetime to extinguish.

And catch fire they did—an internal rift that tore the once-proud house asunder. Revolts broke out across the land. Wars raged between humans, between Chiropterans. Cities were ravaged, their fields set ablaze. Entire castles were toppled to the ground. Newborn Queens were torn from cradles, to be decapitated or flung from cliffs. Princess-Regents were kidnapped and despoiled, mutilated and murdered. So many Chevaliers died, in ugly war-games and uglier executions.

As for the Queens?

The Red Queen succumbed to her Long Sleep. She became the brothers' prized weapon.

Each year, they ripped open her cocoon—an act as profane as tearing apart the pages of holy scripture. The brothers fed her blood, lighting a fuse to the powder-keg of wrath inside her. They set her loose on battlefields, a blind berserker who slaughtered everyone in her path.

And when the battle was won, and she collapsed once more into slumber, a red cherub in a halo of glistening gore, the brothers would haul her off to the next battlefield.

And the cycle would begin anew.

The Blue Queen was locked in a fortress at the edge of the sea, to be starved and slowly driven mad. The brothers did not kill her. They needed a broodmare, to give them a fresh pair of little Queens every second yuletide. Little Queens who were firmly under the brothers' thumbs, to play the puppets for an army of Chevaliers that obeyed the brothers' every command.

And so, biennially, on the cusp of spring, as the birds twittered in the trees and the fortress rang with screams, the Blue Queen was mounted and ridden, with as little care as a brigand might show to a door he were battering open.

And each winter, as the moon bit itself into a ghoulish white smile, she would purge a pair of Queens from her womb—lifeless in a bath of black blood.

The brothers, in a fit of fury, called for the best sage, and mage, and midwife in the land, to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Little did they know, they were playing right into the Blue Queen's hands.

It is true. She had been driven mad in her waking life. Weeping at everything and nothing, plucking roses from thin air and serenading the moon with prayers that sounded like song.

But in her dreams, she saw everything with brutal clarity. She saw her sister being used as an instrument of destruction. She saw kinsmen butchered in wars. She saw the six brothers amassing armies, hell-bent on creating a future of suffering, and blood, and naked greed.

So she did her best to forestall it.

With what meager herbs she grew in her rooftop garden, and with the help of a pitying chambermaid, she cobbled together potions that would stop the heart of any child in her womb. She lay out her plan with ruthless precision, a raft floating on a sea of little corpses, so she could sail out to those who would aid her cause.

Sages, and mages, and midwives, for whom she was still revered as a goddess. She came to them in dreams, blue-eyed and blood-soaked, to whisper her commands.

So the night the brothers summoned the sage, the mage, and the midwife to the fortress, she was well-prepared indeed.

From the mage, the Queen requested forbidden scrolls, alive with dark magic. From the sage, forbidden herbs, alive with dark power. From the midwife, secrets of the body, and all the inscrutable, powerful, magical ways life could be preserved for eons inside the darkness of her womb.

Because the Queen was pregnant again. Only this time, she did not plan to birth dead daughters.

 _Keep them safe._

Those were her final words, a mother's desperate plea.

The sage, the mage, and the midwife did as they were bid.

I do not know more details of that night. But I _do_ know the Queen did not survive beyond the sunrise. Or, I should say, her body did not. Her spirit was ferried to another place. If place is indeed the word for it—a way-station as small as a teardrop and as infinite as the cosmos at the border between life and death.

A place where souls with unfinished business wait, without rest, until said business ceases to be so.

It's a place with many names. Dante Alighieri famously called it _Purgatory_. Buddhists sometimes refer to it as _Naraka_. A folklorist, in this context, might term it simply as _liminality_ , a crossroad between two states.

As for myself?

Well. In those days—these days?—such a place was called Niflheimr. An abode of twilight.

A place not of being, but _becoming_.

It was from this place that the Blue Queen reached out to the Red Queen, the only way she could.

In her dreams.

Hm? You didn't know? The practice of two Queens conversing in the realm of dreams is age-old. Mastering it can be intuitive, for certain pairs of Queens. For others, it may take years of meditation and control over the senses. Rarer still, are those who share this unique experience only after one Queen is dead and gone.

I wish I knew what the two Queens said to each other. I wish I knew if they parted with smiles, or with tears.

I only know that a week later, the Blue Queen, her belly round as the harvest moon, was buried in her ancestral tomb. A week after that, the Red Queen was forced awake once again, to fight in a war.

Only this time, she attacked not her intended foes, but the six brothers.

 _That_ , I was there to witness. For centuries, the memory and my body will vibrate in echo of each other, to the song of red, red victory.

Watching the Red Queen fight had always been like watching a cyclone at sea. At once breathtaking and terrifying—a force of nature wrapped in sleepwalking skin. But this time … _oh_! This time, she was wide awake. And the way she took her enemies was zesty, and bloodthirsty, like a spider devouring a twitching moth.

The oldest brother was a renowned archer. But what good is an archer without eyes? She plucked each eye out with the tip of her sword, juicy as cherries without stones. The rest of him, she slashed to pieces, slowly, making sure he felt every cut.

The second brother was the finest swordsman in the land. But what cares a Red Queen for such vainglorious titles? She slew him in combat—if combat be the word for an eyeblink _swish-swoosh_ of her blade and messy _thuck_ of his chopped-off head.

The remaining brothers suffered the same fate, one after the next. Slash, bash, crash.

The last brother, the youngest and cleverest, escaped. The Red Queen gave chase, across distant lands and numberless days. Each time, by accident, by design, she nearly overtook him. Each time, with cunning, with patience, he eluded. Her hunt spanned far and wide, a net trapping many slithering traitors in its hold.

She spared not a single one.

As for myself?

I was the Blue Queen's only living Chevalier. The Red Queen's only living groom. So I pledged to her my troth, my body, my life.

She accepted.

We ranged across continents, the two of us. I was wily, she was wise, and between us we had such strength that the engines of our bodies seemed powered by the steam of ten armies. I have but to blink to summon the shape of her in combat: a small woman, sharp of eye and pale of skin, her long plait of black hair looped intricately around her skull. Carrying two pearl-handled blades that could slice a hummingbird's wings in half with either hand. Her shadow was the last thing her foes saw before their arterial blood fanned red through the air.

But in those days—these days?—skill was not enough to settle the score.

To kill the last brother, we would need not only swords, but the Devil's own luck.

* * *

Days passed into months.

Leaves reddened and crumpled and fell into patterns in the fields, and our journey took on a pattern: awake at daybreak to the chirruping of birds, on the road by the cold blue morning hours to sniff out the brother's whereabouts, skirmishes against highway robbers or hired swords in the foggy evenings, steel striking off steel and blood splattering the swaying grass, resting at a shady grove or dripping barn by night, myself counting the hours until she was asleep so the haunters in her eyes were dispelled.

Sometimes, under the starry curve of an open field, she would speak to me, our bodies virtuously apart on different pallets, the fire crackling golden between us. I miss her conversations—full of sweet girlish uncertainties, and a seasoned warrior's stratagems. Sometimes she would ask me to sing to her, or play lively strains of the pan flute. Other times I cheered her up with chatter: bits of poetry and raunchy tales from court, and memories of her sister, as sprightly and wise and maddening in her way as the Red Queen was in hers.

She almost always wept on those nights, and always we would speak of our quest in fierce whispers, vows of vengeance and yearnings for closure coming together, as such things often do.

Never once did warmth pass between our bodies. Not even a kiss.

In her all-encompassing quest, she had killed every natural desire in her body. Her soul clutched at nothing but vengeance. It was her Wyrd to seek out the treacherous brother—or die trying. Mine was to follow her, but always at a distance.

Yet I grew to love her.

How could I not? Everything about her was perfect. Pure and ruthless and blazing as fire. I loved her focus, her ferocity. I loved her for the hells she carried inside her. I loved her for the way she wore death like perfume.

I loved her then.

I love her still.

One night—just the one—I nearly told her so. After a brutal battle, propped like bloodstained effigies atop our horses, we found safety in the grasslands of a wintry plateau. Both of us riding in silence, and bleeding; my Queen's clothes soaked as red as her eyes, her head lolling drunkenly against the horse's mane. Three days without sustenance, no flint or medicine between us, it was a quiet inevitability that she would die. It seemed the next gust of wind would knock her from her horse into the grass.

Yet she kept her seat, as if by some ungodly magic. Kept her wits, as she aimed with one shaky hand to a copse of towering oak trees.

In the bone-chilling wind, no other shelter for miles, it was wisest to huddle there than to risk frostbite. And so, after lashing the horses to a tree, I held her braced against my body, her spine curved along my chest. She shivered and murmured, caught in some hellish state between dreams and wakefulness. The coppery scent leeching from her skin held a tang of sickness; I feared she would survive the next sunrise.

Holding her close, whispering her name, I nearly told her then. A love-ballad turned deathbed confession.

But as the first rays of sunlight ribboned through the trees, we were roused at the approach of visitors. Visitors bearing no arms—but flasks of fresh blood, and jars of salve, and piles of fur.

The sage, the mage, and the midwife.

At great peril, they had sought the Red Queen out. They imparted to her the exact manner in which her sister had passed. The forbidden rites she had undertaken, to turn her death into a catalyst for reprisal. They showed her a vial, filled with liquid the color of wolfsbane. A poison, ancient and strong, that could kill even a Chiropteran.

The Red Queen, rested and healed, vowed to use it on the last brother.

It took her decades to find him. Countless Long Sleeps. Countless Awakenings. She roamed far and wide, hatred burning in her like a column of red flame. I was by her side, always. Silent as her shadow, and as devoted.

As our legend grew, renowned warriors joined the Red Queen in her mission. Together, we became a safeguard for her.

A Red Shield.

With the aid of arcane magicks, the mage conjured a network of lookouts for her. Eyes spread out across every city, every mountain and river. Eyes made of strands of power, with forked tongues and tails like snakes, entire swathes of them covering the roads, unseen and unheard, slithering together to form a world-serpent in the shape of Jörmungandr, the ouroboros biting its own tail.

These serpents were the Queen's sentries. Each with glowing blue eyes and tongues shaping the shadowy echo of a name. A sibiliation of tongue-tip and teeth, a parting of lips, a shivering exhale.

 _Saya_.

Ironic, that this was not the Red Queen's name, but her sister's. For everywhere she traveled, slaughtering her enemies, the snakes followed, whispering her sister's name as a reminder of all she'd lost.

People listened from behind their windows, and heard the two-syllable word that wafted after this strange, savage fighter.

They began calling her _Saya_ too.

Centuries into her quest, the Red Queen heard rumors that the brother was on a tiny white-rimmed island in the blue seas of the Pacific, in a dark network of caverns within a green tangle of jungle, all of it part of an exotic archipelago known today as the Ryukyus.

There, on a stormy night, she made port with her comrades. Ready to end this quest, once and forever.

Anyway.

Long story short, we walked into a trap. The brother had laid an ambush for us on that island, all his forces cunningly concealed, all of them converging on us without mercy. It was a blurred typhoon of a battle, blood sprays and arrows, screams and raging rainfall, the zing of adrenaline overlaying the air like electricity.

When it was over, the brother, in a final duel with the Red Queen, was tossed half-crippled into the bowels of a cave. The vial—carrying the poison earmarked as his doom—clattered off to nowhere in the frenzy of the battle.

My own body was a mangled mess of stumps: wings torn off, one arm dangling in its sleeve, the other dropping off in a twist of muscle and bone.

But I was lucky to be alive, if not intact.

Which is more than I could say for my Queen.

I found her at the bottom of the cliffside. Flung away in a final sweep of the brother's claws, just as she had thrown him into the cave. The impact of her fall had shattered her, like a doll thrown from a window. The brother's henchmen, cruel of claw and fangs, took care of the rest. Bits and pieces of her were strewn everywhere, a blood-splatter of body-parts that filled me with dizzy despair to behold.

A Chevalier shouldn't have to gather the fragments of his Queen. He is meant to die at her side, with honor. Or, better still, give his own life to spare hers.

I failed at that.

I failed the Blue Queen—my birth-mother, my lover. I failed the Red Queen—my bride, my salvation.

Perhaps that is my Wyrd? To outlive those I love, not by virtue of victory, but failure.

The brother, at least, was no longer a threat. Our surviving allies and I swore to keep it that way. We sealed the mouth of the cave that held him, with powerful sorcery, and an assload of rocks besides. Imprisoned him, as his brothers had once imprisoned the Blue Queen, so he languished into death-like stasis from want of blood.

The clever mage tasked the serpents to keep watch over the cave.

 _If the place is ever disturbed, warn the Queen's closest kin._

The Red Queen's remains were gathered into an urn. I journeyed home, to the ancestral tomb. There, I placed her alongside her sister.

In those days, it was custom for Queens to be mummified, as only the lowborn were left to rot. For the Red Queen, this was impossible. It grieved me beyond words, for what the maw of war had left uneaten of the woman who was once as beautiful as she was deadly.

But the Blue Queen, with the embalmer's secret herbs, had been preserved. She lay in her glass coffin, a perfect shell, for in the end that was all she was: a shell. They had eviscerated all organs except the cocoons in her belly. This, too, was custom—for who are we to break in death an embrace that was never broken in life?

 _Keep them safe._

So she had begged the sage, the mage and the midwife. And they had granted her wish. A wish, not to cheat death, but to stop time. A wish, in its own way, for eternal life.

For her daughters had purposes, beyond life or death, that even I couldn't fathom.

But I did not think of her daughters. Not then.

Oftentimes we forget everything in our grief. We forget even ourselves, a madness born of pure desolation.

Alone, in that tomb, I wept. I wept for my Queens, for the world would never see their shape again—a fact I both knew yet couldn't believe. I wept for an entire dynasty ruined, an entire people erased. I wept for myself, the last of my kind, a reality of such loneliness that I did not think I could bear it.

But bear it I did.

It is my Wyrd, and I cannot escape it. I can only let it beat against me, as I did that night, walking out of the tomb and into the darkness, down roads with no end in sight. Down futures that may never happen, futures that would happen, and futures I will do everything in my power to stop from happening again.

It is into one such future that this particular tale begins.

Anyway.

Gird up your loins. Dust off those brainpans. Pour yourselves an appletini—or five.

It's storytime.


	2. Glass Half-Full (Part I)

_Yabuchi Island_

 _Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture 904-2304_

 _Japan_

Torchlight bounces off the mouth of the sea cave. Its ceiling and floor are studded with rocks that resemble misshapen tusks. The air is salty, alkaline, but with a strange undernote of _aliveness_.

It lingers not as a statement but a suggestion: the sly whisper of something festering on the salt-fumes, the moisture and dust. Something as ancient and immovable as the cave itself.

It stirs with fascination when two men, waving flashlights, enter the cave.

Biding its time.

Waiting.

"You think the specimen could be hiding in here?" The security guard, nervously puffing a cigarette, picks his way through the dank island cave. "They've only just excavated this place."

"Which means it's got no cameras anywhere." His older companion's craggy face gleams with perspiration, like one of those ugly mushrooms that grow in dank cellars. "We have to check. The higher-ups said he might hide in the darkest available spot."

"What if he's starved to death in here?"

"Goody for us. Bad for the white coats."

"Or—or what if he's, like, _furaagwa_? Crazy. What are we supposed to do then? Ask him nicely to come out?"

"No."

"What then?"

" _Ayena_ , Taka! Get in here and help me _look_."

Grumbling, the older guard lumbers deeper into the cave. The younger man—Taka—hangs back, pissed off by the presumption that he must follow. Taking a final steadying drag on his cigarette, he flicks the butt away. Beads of sweat pop on his temples.

It is a suffocatingly humid night. The monsoon season is at its zenith. In the sky, the gibbous moon is colossal, a misshapen coin that plays over the sway of palm trees, the white surf of the sea. Yet the heat is bone-deep, like a sickness.

Swiping at his brow, Taka aims his flashlight around the cave.

Dust-motes swirl, broken by the glitter of dripping water. Everywhere, there are tunnels honeycombed through the cave. Some are too narrow to accommodate more than a human hand. Others are big enough for an entire person to fit through.

Idly, Taka wonders how complex the tunnels could be. What they might contain.

 _Thirsty._

Jerking, Taka glances around. "You say something, Fiija?"

"No. Why?"

"N-Nothing. I thought I heard—" He shakes it off. "Forget it. Must be the wind."

"Wind. Farts. Your grandma's whistling pissflaps. I don't give a shit. _Help me look_!"

"Okay. _Okay_."

Flashlight aloft, Taka creeps deeper into the cave. His shoes scrape across the slippery surface of the floor. Unsteadily, he holds a free hand out for balance; it touches the cave wall and he nearly recoils. It feels like scraping the inside of someone's nostril, a bone-like hardness filmed in something slimy.

The darkness pulls at him with a strange unnatural thirst; it saps away the bright beam of his torch, and drinks up the trickle of moonlight falling from outside.

Uneasily, Taka squints. In the gloom, Fiija is a misshapen outline.

"Helluva night," the older man grumbles. "This was supposed to be an early shift. I'd already made plans with the wife and kids."

"Didn't the head honchos say the experiment was in its final stages? Maybe the specimen escaped 'cause they got careless?"

"What's it matter now? If we don't find him soon, we're _all_ screwed."

Wind like a death-rattle rushes through the cave. The _drip-drip-drip_ of water is eerily loud.

Scowling, Fiija pins his flashlight to different spots of the cave. The stark outline of the cavern tunnels suggests not a cozy hiding space for a burrowing animal, but a labyrinth for a monster.

"Plenty of places the bastard could be hiding," Fiija says. "He might've squirreled into one of the tunnels. See if you can find a stick or something. Maybe we can poke around the tunnels."

"Why not just secure the cave, and send out a search party in the daylight? Higher visibility then."

"The boss wants all hands on deck. We need to find that monster and return him to the lab. If he makes it off the island—"

"I know, I know. Deep shit. Screwed. Blah blah blah."

Grumbling, Taka squats to examine a gnarled stick on the ground. Maybe a leftover bit of driftwood; maybe a torn-off branch. Whatever—it'll do. He denudes it of sprigs and sand-clots, then rises to poke it into the nearest tunnel. One after the next, seeing how far the stick goes. Most of the passages are too narrow by far, or too short. Others are clogged by erosion and seepage, reminding him of ossified arteries.

"Maybe I should get that tranquilizer gun from the jeep?" he says, between jabs of the stick. "I mean—I doubt he's in here. But what if he is? Why take chances?"

"Aw. You scared, Taka-kun?" Fiija's mockery is only half-playful. "Want me to hold your hand?"

Taka rolls his eyes. "Look—we aren't fully trained to handle those _things_. I'm not sure stumbling in the dark or poking sticks into random holes is the best solution."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. That strategy is shit in other places, too."

"Like where?"

"Like on my last date."

Both men dissolve into sniggers.

 _Thirsty_.

This time, they hear it perfectly. It is barely a susurration of sound, yet the diction is crystal-clear. It rises, not from the tunnels, but the layers of rock everywhere, a disquieting exhale of dust. As if the cave itself is breathing.

Both men freeze, the backs of their necks prickling.

"That was—" Taka begins.

"I heard it," says Fiija.

"Shit. Maybe—maybe we should call for back-up. If the specimen's really in here—"

"He might be. Or—"

"Or what?"

Fiija's face is bone-white in the torch-glow. "It might be something else."

"Something else? Like wha—!"

From Fiija's pocket, a chirruping noise. Hastily, he fishes out a beeper, glowing blue. A message flashes on the screen; he squints as he reads it.

"...Our specimen."

"What about him?" Taka asks.

"They've found him. Near the mangrove swamp."

"So it's All Clear?"

"That's what they say." Fiija's eyes meet Taka's uneasily. "There's just one problem."

"What?"

"He's dead."

" _Dead_?" Taka goggles. "How? I thought those things were like, superhuman!"

"Seems the transformation didn't take. The message says his vital organs shut down."

Taka puffs out a breath. " _Damn_. So this whole hunt was just—"

"A big fuckin' waste of time." Fiija stows the beeper away, swiping at his damp brow. "But that's twice as much reason to head back."

"Yeah. The main office needs to know that— _oh fuck_!"

Something prickly-cold drips down Taka's shirt-collar. Just a drop of water from one of the stalactites. But he is so keyed-up that the shock makes him stumble across the slimy floor, feet skidding and arms flapping. His torch clatters away, throwing crazy shadows across the walls.

Taka lands hard on hands and knees. When he straightens, his palms are dark with blood-smears, lightly salted with grit. More blood glistens on the cave floor.

"Ouch." Fiija shines his torch at him. "You okay?"

"I'll live." Taka straightens on jellyfish legs. "We should get out of here."

"Yeah. We'll call in the big guns. Have the cave sealed off. Then—"

"Fiija?"

"Yeah?"

Taka points with a trembling finger.

The torch has fallen a few feet off. Its light bounces off the deepest tunnels of the cavern. In the blazing white luminescence, the pockmarked holes resemble gaping mouths. By the largest hole, small shapes are littered everywhere.

Animal carcasses.

Birds, desiccated to feathery exoskeletons. Bats, torn open, bones gleaming through the fur. Sand crabs, their furry little bodies cracked apart like walnuts.

From inside the hole, a whispery, inhuman gasp rises, growing steadily louder and more spine-chilling.

Then something slithers out.

A hand.

A large bony hand, nearly human in proportions except the skin is overlaid with reptilian pebbling. The cuticles at the fingers are misshapen, almost clawlike, as dark as iron nails and sharp enough to puncture right into flesh and bone.

Transfixed, the two men stare.

The hand skitters out of the hole. It is attached to a wrist, wasted and nearly skeletal, its surface shimmering with a bristle of fur and more of those same iridescent pebbles. Inch by inch, the hand reaches out, toward the bloodstain left on the rocks.

Slowly, the hand scoops up the bloodied grit. Drags it back toward the hole. The motion is careful, almost tender. The hand disappears into the hole; there is a rattling sound, a liquid wheeze, the _crunch_ of churned grit under molars.

Whatever is inside the tunnel, it is _sucking_ on the bloodsplattered dirt. Noisy, relishing, the way a child sucks on a mouthful of gobstoppers.

Another noise makes itself heard over the sucking. A surreal sibilance that deepens into a moan.

 _Thirsty_.

"Fiija—" Taka scrambles backward, tugging his coworker's sleeve. "Fiija—we need to get out of here—"

Fiija doesn't hear him. He is staring with bulging eyes, his whole body paralyzed. "That—that's not one of our test subjects—"

" _Fuck that_! We need to—"

He can't finish. A long leathery body, bristling with electric awareness, slinks into view. In the torch glow, the men can see that it is the color of something left moldering at the bottom of a refrigerator. A mottled brown, smeared with sea-soil and pebbles. The teeth are the same, dirty tusks gnashing inside a beastly mouth, blood and spume lodged between the gaps.

A string of drool drips from the blackened lips; the blue eyes twinkle with a mindless thirst.

" _Shit! Shit_!"

" _Oh my fucking God_!"

The shrieks barely register over the _roar_ that explodes through the cavern. It collides off the walls, shoots up both men's spines, echoes through the tunnels and the chambers of their skulls. Their rational minds urge them to flee; their primitive midbrains hold them rooted to the spot.

Prey confronted with an apex predator.

Then their vision is filled with nothing but the flash of blue eyes and massive teeth as the creature erupts from the tunnel, a chaos of twisted muscle and ripping claws that slash straight through their bodies.

The cave fills with screams, and the spray of fresh blood.

In the distance, Taka's stick, smeared in red, clatters away. For a moment, it lays there. Then it _shivers_ down its length, flexing and curling. Its texture changes from splintered wood to black scales.

It is a snake, glossy and muscular, its eyes glowing blue.

For a moment, it regards the carnage in the cave. Then it blinks, a slow flicker of eyelids, before its tongue darts out.

Hissing, the snake slithers off into the night.

* * *

" _Saya_!"

The voice overlaps the bouncy refrain of golden oldies on the radio. There is a high-pitched blare of car horns. The onrushing headlights are two fireflies, then a blinding spotlight, speeding right at them.

Haji grabs the car wheel, yanking it sideways. Tires _screech_. The car swerves, and the lights fade. The narrow road, defined by white stripes, glows in the moonlight.

"Saya? Are you all right?"

She can't answer. Her knuckles are bone-white where she grips the wheel.

"Saya—perhaps driving in manual was not the best idea. Should we pull over?"

"I—I wasn't—"

"What's the matter? Did you see something?"

Alertness cuts through the concern in her Chevalier's voice. She is conscious of the atmosphere changing with his body-language: the lax slump of a passenger reshaping into the straight lines of a protector.

"I-I'm okay." It's an effort to move her lips. "There was—something in the way."

"A rabbit?"

"No."

"What then?"

The road they are on is all steep edges, with grassy dunes on either side. The waxing moon plays across the tarmac. But that isn't what had startled her. It was a dark slither that leapt out into the headlights, eyes glowing blue, its body zigzagging from one side to the next before disappearing.

"It was a snake."

"A snake?"

"It was _huge_. Didn't you see it?"

Haji hesitates. His pale blue gaze maps out the world, as if he might have overlooked something despite his unfailing Chiropteran senses.

Neutrally: "I did not see anything, Saya." He tries to catch her eyes, but they are locked ahead, both fevery and unfocused. "You're certain it was a snake?"

"Ye-es."

She isn't anymore, but she tries to reign in her spooked heartbeat. The wheel is damp in her clenched palms. Her right wrist, encased snugly in a pink cast, throbs with the quiet purr of the engine.

The car, a self-driving model, was a gift from Red Shield. It is small and sleek, nearly noiseless. Saya had never seen a self-driving car before. At least not in 2007. She wasn't sure she trusted it—but then, it was difficult to trust any facet of this flashy, freakish, newfangled future, and the way it tried to live your life for you.

Maybe that was why she'd tried driving the car herself.

Haji, poor thing, made a token attempt to dissuade her. After all, her wrist still wasn't healed from her prior—accident. Wouldn't she prefer to drive in automatic, or let him take the wheel?

In reply, Saya jutted her jaw stubbornly. And that was that.

It was a bad idea from the outset. (George had tried teaching her to drive, decades ago, in a yellow Volkswagen borrowed from an army pal. But she was a lackluster pupil, and directionally challenged besides.) The controls—who needed so many buttons?—went completely over her head. The glowing screen on the dashboard gave her the creeps. So did the automated GPS, the chiming notifs, the real-time maps, the robotic voices.

Too much sensory input. Too much information.

"Haji?"

"Yes?"

"Next time, let's travel the old-fashioned way." Leaping airborne from rooftop to rooftop, she means. "This is nice, and all. But I'm getting carsick."

Her Chevalier doesn't answer. But she senses, in the silence, that he is trying not to smile. The energy in the air softens, no longer dynamite but a drumbeat. Guitar-strings lilting in the space between them.

 _Don't go 'round tonight_  
 _It's bound to take your life_  
 _There's a bad moon on the rise..._

After a moment, he says quietly, "We could pull over."

Her heart does a funny flipflop. "Um—"

"There is a lay-by up ahead."

"It's fine. I mean—we're nearly there."

"Just until you feel better."

"Well... Okay."

They stop at a gravel shoulder, at the edge of the highway. Saya cuts the engine, and climbs out. The humid air is redolent with the Okinawan summer: seaside, mangroves, gasoline and the smoky aroma of burnt leaves. Beyond the curved guardrail, the light of the moon winks across the ocean.

On instinct, her eyes scan the empty road for the eerie sidewinder motion of the snake.

Nothing there.

 _Maybe I was imagining things?_

It wouldn't be the first time; her unique brand of post-war jitters coming in past due. The smallest shock veers her central nervous system between fight-or-flight.

A cool touch on her shoulder. "Saya?"

She jerks, then relaxes. "Fine. I-I'm fine."

"Your hands are shaking."

"What?"

She stares down. Her hands are balled-up into trembling fists, nails biting into the palms. Muscle-memory. She has spent so many years with the heft of her sword in her hands. Its absence, the lightness of weight, can feel like a phantom limb some days.

But then, some days, the absence of the war feels much the same. Without warning, it can strike her, not as a sunburst, but as a bullet. Some days, it is hard to believe that the duty that once lent her life such a powerful superstructure is _gone_.

And some days, it isn't the absence of war or duty that disorients, but the absence of their origin.

 _Diva_.

Lately, Saya finds that she isn't living her life, so much as salvaging what remains of it around the emptiness in the shape of her sister. For so long, she'd lived as her twin's self-appointed executioner. It had defined her like an aureole of light around a star, the form of her existence.

But now, without Diva, she is out of place, out of sorts.

Maybe even out of her mind.

 _Stop it._

Exhaling, she unclenches her hands, and the rest of her body. Wind ruffles her long hair as she turns toward Haji.

"I'm fine," she repeats, and this time it is steady, soft-eyed. "I promise."

"Did you doze off back there?"

"I thought I saw a snake. It was probably a trick of light."

"As long as it was not a hallucination." Haji's look is gentle. "You have not been sleeping well of late."

"Better than I used to sleep. In the war, anyway. Nowadays I'm just... antsy."

"Perhaps more exercise would help."

She flushes at that. He says it matter-of-factly, a Chevalier concerned for his Queen. But there is a tiny spark of heat that accompanies the words.

From any angle, the situation is titillating. The full moon, the parked car, the public privacy.

Five months out of her Long Sleep, and this is their first moment alone— _truly_ alone. Three months of foggy amnesia and monosyllabic conversations, and he has not so much as dared to hold her hand. Four weeks since she's regained her memory, the two of them circling each other in a stilted courtship dance, and they've traded barely a dozen innocent kisses. Thirty years of waiting, and nearly a century of warfare, and they've held on to their distance, two fencing partners always fenced apart by duty and reserve.

Any mutual want between them had never been discussed, an unthinkable taboo in a crisis where such self-indulgence could not exist.

Yet the unshakable partnership between them was cultivated by the same war: it was there in the quiet conversations between eyes and bodies, the way they bandaged and bolstered each other, in the blood-pact that operated on a level beyond loyalty or lust.

And even then, to cross the line into the territory of lovers is a terrifying leap of faith—no matter how right it feels.

 _Lovers_.

What a generic noun to apply to herself and Haji. Two people who have traversed the entire wilderness of named emotions: agony, loneliness, affection, despair. Who have been everything to each other, from the mundane to the monstrous.

The latest change is as much a quandary as an inevitability, its truth mysterious as a puzzle piece, lacking sense until it fits into Saya's life with the quality that it is exactly as it should be.

Even if—as with all the pieces of her life—the transition isn't a smooth one.

Daring a glance at Haji, she finds him staring, not at her, but out to the sea. Wind stirs the dark curls over his forehead. His eyes are closed; he takes a deep scenting breath, and holds it.

Reconnaissance, she realizes. He is double-checking that whatever spooked her earlier wasn't a real threat.

She makes use of the distraction to study him. Amazing, how little he's changed. Still pale, self-possessed. Hair a handspan longer, untied. The clothes crisply formal, more expensive perhaps, yet still tasteful. The body underneath: still lean and long-boned and wide-shouldered, the razor-fine physical edge between athletic and ascetic. At this hour, he could be a night-stroller soaking in the lunar rays.

The only difference are the scars.

Pale as lace, spanning in irregular lines down the crest of his left brow, slicing the cheekbone and jawline, before trickling down his throat to vanish into the fabric of his clothes.

A leftover of the Option D bombing: his body split into pieces like the Met itself.

Over the years, Chiropteran physiology has healed the worst of the wounds. But like his clawed hand, those strange seams remain, as if the skin was imperfectly sewn together. A cruel map of his history—but also of everything he's overcome so they can be together.

 _Whatever 'together' means, when I'm crazy six-tenths of the time,_ she thinks—and tries to unthink it.

Sensing no danger, Haji exhales, and opens his eyes. When he turns to her, his expression is hard to read, his blue gaze flitting consideringly over her.

"If you are truly restless, Saya, we can fly the rest of the way. The villa is not far. The car can navigate there by itself."

"It's okay. I'm feeling better."

"Are you hungry? Kai packed a thermos of blood for you. And a bento-box."

"I'll eat once we're there."

 _There_.

At the private villa near Naminoue Beach: a pale tumble of limestone and deep-red pottery tiles done in the traditional _minka_ fashion. She has visited the place before, with Kai and her nieces. Taking the grand tour. Poking and prying. Dropping off her things in cardboard boxes. All part of the Big Move out of Omoro and into her own space.

Well. Hers and Haji's, _together_.

It should be exciting. It _is_ —except the excitement is icing over a deeper layer of fear. She and Haji have faced so much, most of it traumatizing and violent. But never—domestic. Happy. Peaceful.

She can't bring herself to trust it, any more than she trusts being alive.

"Saya?" asks her mind-reader, "What's the matter?"

Caught-out, she flushes. "It's nothing. I'm just ... gathering wool."

"On my face?"

Every once in a while his humor trickles in, dry as white wine. She bites back a smile.

"It's a good face to gather wool on."

"It is not the face you are used to."

Always, he refers to his changed appearance obliquely. Aware of how it suffuses her with guilt, though he tells her often enough it wasn't her fault. He is simply happy to be alive, and with her, because that is how Haji is.

Always a glass half-full.

Smiling, she squeezes his hand with her good one. "I'll get used to it soon enough. Like... everything else I'm not used to." _Hopefully_. "Tell me—are you nervous?"

"Of what?"

"This. Us. The fact that... there is an _Us_." Shyly, she casts her gaze away from him, to the moon-dappled water. "With the war, there's so much we never talked about. Now it's ended, and I have this—giant jumble of thoughts. I'm afraid to even look at them."

The wind blows her hair around her face. Haji smooths it down, tangling his fingers in it. The touch makes her shiver as much as that slow dark timber of his voice. "Why would you be afraid, Saya?"

"Because—I'm not sure how we'll fit. As something more than fighters. We've never had a chance to..."

"To what?"

"Be normal, I guess."

Pensive, Haji absorbs the word. Then, he gathers her into his arms. Her first instinct is to peel herself away: _NoI'mfineIt'sNothing!_ But it is followed by a tremor of relief when she tips her head to take in his expression—at once piercing and tender.

He is never easy to read, but she is learning, the way animals learn to sense the grind of tectonic plates before earthquakes, how to parse his subtle signals. In the war, they'd never mattered so much to her. Never felt like they could knock her off-balance.

Until he was gone—taking her entire center of gravity, and the ground beneath her feet.

"Normal is a subjective word," he says, "I would rather shape it to our lives, then let our lives be shaped by it."

"But what if it's not enough? What _I'm_ not enough? For you. For the life you deserve to have."

He encompasses her tighter in his embrace. "You deserve that life twice as much as I do."

"Sometimes... I doubt it."

"Please have more faith in yourself. It will be different. If you let it."

"What if it's not?"

"There is no point worrying about what hasn't come to pass." His quiet resolve seems to resonate in the air around them; in the moonlight, it practically gleams in his free-floating curls, the glints of his blue eyes. "Nor is there a way to force becoming into being, until the time is right."

"Like... in the war?"

"It held its share of lessons."

 _God_. What an understatement. They've both learned disaster and disappointment from the war, self-denial and solitude. Yet despite those ugly times, knee-deep in bloodshed, the trust that should have shattered between them had been forged solid.

Blooming, burgeoning, becoming—inexplicably—into _this_.

Maybe that's all the more reason not to speculate about the future? To snatch at whatever they have in the moment—because the moment is all that matters.

"...I'm just not used to it," she whispers.

"To what?"

"Taking as given that we'll be happy. We will... won't we?"

It is blurted on a blush, like a lost child, embarrassed to need the reassurance, but unable to quell the urge.

In answer, Haji envelops her shoulders, his cool palm coasting from her spine to the nape of her neck. No one can hug her like he does. She wonders, sometimes, where he'd first picked it up: this potent gift to soothe. Certainly not from her. Maybe it's a natural talent, like the effortless way he plays cello, his unerring aim with throwing-knives, the trancey sweetness of his kisses.

Her skin burns, a flush of longing as much as shyness.

When he tips her face up, a quiet query, she reaches at the same time to encircle his neck. The kiss comes with a dizzy smoothness, like all their kisses do, as if they've rehearsed them together day and night.

Haji pulls her closer against him, gently. But she feels the heat brimming up in him. His desire is always slow to rise. But when it does, it is like a current in dark water, powerful and unyielding.

These few days, she has tasted, in small doses, how he experiences her—the intensity, the bottomlessness, the sheer overflow of it. It is frightening, yet fascinating: herself in Haji's eyes. Whereas her own desires for him, mutable as wildfire, have always existed in a kind of vault, its borders harshly defended.

But is it worth it, to hold herself apart anymore? To punish him by punishing herself?

Her hand curls tighter around the lapels of his coat; her mouth opens against his. The kiss changes from a slow dip to a hot, deep dive. There is a catch in Haji's breath. She feels his pulse accelerate, a spike in the smooth mechanism of bone and blood that is his body.

Unexpectedly, he waltzes her back to pin her against the car door. Hands catch her face. Cool, long-fingered hands that smell of rosin and soap. The familiar scent anchors her. But the kiss, passing from tongue to tongue, becomes like the sea inside—full of risks and riptides.

Saya's breath spangles on a sigh. All their kisses so far have been short ones: some sweet, some spicy. But each one a variation of a single chaste theme. This is different—almost like learning a new language. Each curl of tongue, and scrape of teeth, and slide of lips a strange, exciting turn of phrase.

 _Mine_. It goes through her in a hot tremor of need. _Mine. Mine._

Then Haji's hands are on her, cool and careful. Not laying claim but seeking permission. Shivering, she curves her spine, softens her muscles. Trying to make herself easy to kiss, easy to touch, easy to take.

Except it is never easy.

Each time they are at this mid-point, a trapdoor opens inside her, adrenaline spilling out. It feels like a blow in the battlefield, peptides crackling from her musculature to her brainpan.

Readying her for danger.

But there is no danger. Only the cool pressure of Haji's mouth, the sleek flex of his tongue. He crowds into her slowly, one thigh up between hers. The bandaged hand tangles in her hair; the other passes and repasses along her body. Roaming down her throat, the line of her shoulder, the curve of one breast. He's not yet been so demonstrative in showing his desire. Soon they are both breathing heavily, sine waves of heat humming in the air between them.

"H-Haji—"

Her Chevalier stops, chastened, like a gentleman caught in a breach of decorum. "What's the matter?"

"N-Nothing."

He withdraws his hand. "You're shaking."

She can't answer. Her eyes burn red with the heat spreading under her skin, the telltale energy that makes her such a terror in battle. But here? She has no idea what to do with it here. It leaves her shredded inside: raw and aching and paralyzed.

"Saya?"

"I-I'm fine." She swallows. "Like I said. I'm not... used to this."

Haji's expression changes, as if her words hold a profound echo, their resonance hitting the true iceberg of inhibitions inside her. He goes solemn, and with the quiet deference that characterizes everything they do together, smooths her dress down.

"Forgive me."

"Ssh. I liked it. I was just... surprised."

"That was not my intention." He meets her eyes, with such lustful reverence it makes her shiver. "I never want you to feel pressured, Saya. Not on my account."

"I know, Haji. I promise you aren't pressuring me."

"But you will tell me, if I am?"

She dredges up playfulness. "With a punch of honesty."

The knuckles of her injured hand brush his chin, so light it becomes a caress. He catches her hand and kisses it, cool and pure as a snowflake fallen on her skin.

In that moment, the dizziness dissolves as if it never was. She is perfectly, serenely safe.

They remain entwined together. Gently, Saya puts her other hand up to his hairline, smoothing the dark curls. How to tell him, the depth of sensation that arises from that simple touch? How overwhelming it is, just to be so close to him?

But the way Haji sighs, his eyes falling dreamily shut, tells her he feels it too.

"We can pick up where we left off," she suggests tentatively. "At the villa."

"Sssh. There is no hurry."

His voice is quiet. But she feels the tension stirred by her words, a depth-charge beneath the calm of the blue sea.

A smile sneaks out of her. "Or we can do it here? A parked car. A moonlit night. Nobody around but—"

This time, his kiss is neither cool nor pure. His mouth covers hers as an imperative. Even as she returns it, he is snatching her closer, as if clutching at something it is too dangerous to grow accustomed to, yet something he craves like blood.

The summer breeze kicks up, stirring the sparse trees, stirring up her thoughts. If she gives the word, she realizes he will make love to her right in the backseat of the car, as frantic as two teenagers.

She also realizes she wants him just as badly. But the want is knotted with fear. Beyond inexperience or intimacy. It is fear at inhabiting her own body. At being present and complete and alive.

Because _Alive_ is still synonymous with _Wrong_.

All at once, a van zooms by. Hi-beams flash across the shoulder in dazzling spears of light, leaving behind red floaters on darkness as it screeches off at rubbernecker speed.

Gasping, Saya and Haji break free.

 _For God's sake!_

The roar of the van should've been loud as a foghorn to their preternatural hearing. But it's evident that Haji was equally blindsided.

Their eyes meet. A blink, then two, before something almost like hilarity rises. Haji shakes his head, his lips forming a not-quite-a-smile. Saya covers her mouth with both hands, giggles burbling in the back of her throat.

"Maybe a parked car isn't a good idea," she manages.

"Perhaps not."

"Anyway. I just realized. There's no way you'd fit in the backseat."

"You believe so?"

She gives him a speaking once-over. _Yes, I do._ The hatchback is made to the typical proportions of _Kei jidōsha_ —literally _light automobile_. Her Chevalier, well over six feet, would have to fold himself like a rug to fit inside.

"Funny," she muses, "At the Zoo, I used to envy how tall you were. Just the right size to hold the cello. Or to grab the blackcurrant jam from the kitchen shelves. But here's one thing I don't have to worry about."

"What is that?"

"There's no way you can fool around with other girls in this car. Not without kicking out all the windows."

Haji's look is dryly eloquent. _I am glad your priorities are straight._

She watches him draw a cellphone from his coat—a sleek black model identical to hers, except in color (hers is pink, naturally). He handles it without undue concern, like paging through a book. She finds this oddly charming. But then, for all his old-fashioned trappings, Haji is too practical to be a luddite.

Calling the police, he reports a drunk driver in the area.

"It's probably just a bunch of teenagers," she remarks, when he hangs up.

"Or an inebriate American."

She bites back a smile. He's stayed in Okinawa twelve years during her Long Sleep. Enough time to acquire the locals' distaste for troublemaking tourists. Enough to acquire a lot of things, really—except for a colorful wardrobe and a suntan.

None of it for his own sake, but hers. To fit himself into her life, after the war.

Tenderness catches like a barb in her throat. When he starts handing her into the car, with the same respectful intimacy as he'd once helped her board a carriage in another century, her fingers tighten on his.

"Haji?"

"Yes?"

"Send the car home on its own. I don't want to drive."

Ever-vigilant, he frowns, "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

"No. Just—"

"Just what?"

"Let's take the old-fashioned way. It's faster."

Her gaze catches his, to let him know what she means. Let him know why she wants to take the faster route.

Haji doesn't say anything. But his eyes, under heavy lids, spark into blue witchfire. Gathering her close, he barely pauses a moment to sling their lunchbag over his shoulder, before activating the car's self-navigating controls.

Then he _leaps_ —a deep-sea diver falling in reverse. A challenge to kinematics and gravity itself.

Ocean glitters below, the dark network of the highway spreading out around them. Salt-spray and windsong fills her ears. But all Saya feels is the circle of his arms—and the drum of her own hidden heart. Anxiety and anticipation.

But she will endure it. As long as it is Haji, she can endure anything.

Anything that makes the ache—of the war, of the past, of _Diva_ —go away.

If only for a little while.

* * *

 _No idea when the next chapter will fall. Nonetheless I'll try to pen it down and post it soon._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed!_

 _Review please! :3_


	3. Glass Half-Full (Part II)

_Hoookay! Chapter 3! Full of angst, but with an (hopefully? hue hue hue :3) uplifting ending. Also fair warning: no idea when ch 4 will be completed. It may be three weeks from now, or longer than that. RL is getting in the way, as always._

 _Hope you guys enjoy! And thank you so much for the lovely feedback on the earlier chapters! Each review/comment legitimately brightens up my day, and makes me eager to churn out more content._

 _So... hem hem, more feedback will make Lullabyes write more stuff._

 _Just sayin' :3_

* * *

They arrive at the villa just before midnight.

The sea-air whips at their clothes. Haji cuts through space the same way, sharp as a manta-ray slicing the night. Coattails flapping with the easy descent, shoes soft on the sparkling sand.

He sets her down with equal softness, plenty of space between them.

"Um. Thank you," Saya manages.

Politely, he inclines his head. But she feels the quiet burn of his gaze. The moment should feel anticipatory, thrilling. Yet, dizzy from the flight, she seems to drop clumsily down to earth.

No second-thoughts—but a failure to trust reality.

At the gate, Haji punches in a code—wired to both their fingerprints. The gate swings noiselessly open. They walk the rest of the way up through the silvered dunes, to where their destination nestles on a sloping abutment overlooking the ocean.

The villa is Red Shield's. Comfortable and well-appointed, in the way of all property belonging to the organization.

But this place is special. Not because it is designated for the use of a Chiropteran Queen, for her Chevalier—although this is undoubtedly the purpose of its soundproofed basement, sleekly fitted out with an indoor pool and a training room, and the fresh blood-packs delivered like clockwork to its marble kitchens, and the touchscreen panels in every room with customized settings for light and temperature control, and the multi-layered alarm systems of interior and exterior night vision cameras, and the attached outdoor solarium that doubles as a hot-tub.

All of that, in itself, is impressive—and more than a little disorienting to Saya. (She still hasn't grasped the breadth of technological connection in this future, or how matter-of-factly it fits into every facet of daily life).

No—the villa is special because Haji stayed here during her Long Sleep.

Her Chevalier was quiet during their airborne journey. Quiet still, as he shuts the door behind them, and activates the alarm on the keypad. From the corner of her eye, Saya watches him—a dark sleek shape that should echo the dark sleek intentions springing loose in her mind. She'd had _plans_ , avidly cultivated during the flight. Candles, wine, music, silky little underthings.

But now, shyness is so enormous it pinions her.

"Haji, I, um—"

She breaks off on a full-body shiver as he flows up behind her. His hands clasp her elbows, before sliding around, cool fingers knitting themselves over her ribcage. He looms in close, his cheek alongside hers. His face is cool too, but not smooth; the sanding of fine hairs there always remind her more of velvet than stubble.

Kissing her ear, he whispers, "Hungry?"

"For f-food?"

"If that is what you call Kai's cooking."

" _Hey_." She starts to defend her brother's culinary skills—then deflates with a giggle. "At least the boiled eggs are nice."

"I can fix more of those for you."

'"No. It's fine. I've been doing nothing but stuffing my face lately."

"You need to. You are still too thin."

This might be criticism, but she hears the concern. She still isn't up to her normal weight since the Awakening. Her appetite is robust as ever. But food seems to trickle through her like water from a colander. Nothing fills her up anymore.

Maybe her belly, weaned on blood and bonemeal in the war, has forgotten how to be satisfied with anything else?

"I'm _fine_ ," she insists. "Anyway, aren't there, um, other things you'd rather do?"

"Such as?"

"Oh, I don't know..." She tries for a sexy lilt, but it fails her at the last moment on a red-flushed stutter. "Something involving poking, grilling, tenderizing..."

Haji exhales a chuckle—soundless yet husky-edged. It catches her off-guard. She isn't yet accustomed to their shared snatches of humor. Yet it comes easily, as if the childhood ghosts residing in the homes of their bodies have kept an ongoing score of every deprivation in the midst of the larger, messier, scarier trajectory in their lives.

 _Any minute now, I'm going to wake up._

 _Any minute, the universe will end._

It doesn't.

Haji nuzzles the spot where her jaw melts into neck. She shivers again, twisting her head to catch his mouth with hers. The kiss zips hotly through her, scalp to groin to tiptoes. Her pulse spikes, adrenaline bursting in her bloodstream.

Just like on the highway. But this time she can master it.

It's easier than expected. Everything about Haji—from the slowness of his manner to the close-range glint of his blue eyes to the undemanding fit of his body—makes her feel _safe_. His tongue links hers between their parted lips, a shy flirting that soon shapes into a hungry arrhythmic sync. The give and take is nearly as effortless as when they'd fight side-by-side, when they'd waltz, or fence, or play cello.

They break apart on gasps. She lets off a giggle. "I didn't think—"

"What?"

"I didn't think I'd—" _Love kissing you as much as I do._ Hard to believe she'd gone without something so ... essential. She wants to tell him that, but it will sound so strange. She gently bites his chin instead. " 'You kiss—by th'book.' "

Haji buries his face in her hair. She feels the imprint of his smile. "The Old Testament or _The Pearl_?"

"Both, I think."

For all the monosyllabic straightforwardness between them, these flirtations stir her up like the most red-hot raunch. It's a new territory—all twists and turns. The way he segues smoothly from banter to bluntness; the way he wields silence as a _mot juste_ as much as a punchline. Discoveries that delight her, because they align so perfectly with her own tastes—a sense of fitting that she hasn't felt since the day she'd heard Diva's song and her heart had stretched yearningly toward it in its cage.

Then she hears Diva's voice, as if right in her ear. _It can be that way again, big sister._

Nausea surges. She flinches.

Haji touches her face. "What's wrong?"

"N-Nothing."

"You're sure?"

"Y-Yeah. I'm—" _Fine. I'm can't be anything other than fine._

Except Haji's eyes are on her. Always reading her with insight and intuition. Gently, he turns her to face him. "We do not have to do anything tonight, Saya."

"No, I—I _want_ to." Over a century already wasted. Months swallowed by amnesia, so only a measly two and a half years remain. She sighs. "There's so little time for us."

"Ssh. We have all the time in the world." He kisses her forehead. " _You_ have all the time, and it will get easier for you. I promise."

 _What if it doesn't?_

She can't bring herself to ask.

They stay clasped together. But the mood is broken up, desire congealed into the old icewater of uncertainty. She ought to say goodnight and turn in—except she can't bear to let the evening end with a desultory dinner and a kiss. That is too much like the not-touching they've been doing these past weeks at Omoro.

She tries a coaxing smile. "Why don't you give me a proper tour? There's a lot of rooms I haven't seen yet."

It's a pathetic ploy, and Haji recognizes it. But he also recognizes why she is asking. So he takes her by the hand, and leads her deeper into the villa.

For the next few minutes, he shows her around, their footsteps cat-soft on the thick rugs. She peers into the neat, softly-lit, dustless rooms. The layout is symmetrical and high-ceilinged, with the unmistakable aura of reverb. Somber Louis Philippe-influenced furniture with graceful Japanese touches of a moon-viewing window, a tatami dining-area, low-floating _akari_ lanterns, sliding panels lacquered with black and gold Japonaiserie—a compelling combination of European curves and Eastern angles.

Finally, they stop at the staircase leading to the bedrooms. Their eyes meet; she drops hers with a flush. Her Chevalier seems much the same. Not uncomfortable, exactly, but holding himself at a courteous distance.

Silence teeters like a tightrope walker. Then:

"This place is, um, bigger than I expected," she chirps. "There's something almost nostalgic about it."

"How so?"

"It kinda reminds me of the Zoo."

He smiles faintly. "A few items here are from the Zoo."

"Wh-what?"

"Monsieur Goldschmidt VI. A year before your Awakening, he sent boxes from the family's storage vault. Old belongings of yours, salvaged after the Bordeaux Sunday."

"Why would he do that?"

His smile fades. "He has taken ill. I suppose he wanted to sort out his affairs... while he still could."

"I-I didn't realize."

Guilt creeps in. Apart from a pleasant _Welcome Back_ phone-call soon after her Awakening, she'd not spoken to Monsieur Goldschmidt at all. Had not even thought about him, really—but given the circumstances, was that surprising?

Her friends and family had their own lives now. And she'd gone from being the focal-point to the loose end in them.

She supposes many soldiers, home from war, feel the same way. In the early days of her Awakening, she'd been half-glad for the space. It gave her time to put herself back together into _Saya_ —whoever she was now.

Still, Joel had fought in the war side-by-side with her. If he was ill, she must see him at least once, before...

"Maybe I can visit him," she says.

"He is in Paris. At the Hôpital Saint-Louis."

Haji says this in a cautionary tone, as if dissuading her from making the trip. Why? Is Monsieur Goldschmidt too sick to take visitors? Or does Haji think she's not yet ready for the journey, her post-war trauma a crazy splinter lodged in the brain?

 _Can you blame him?_

Wincing, she shakes it off. "Will you show me, Haji? The things he's sent?"

Haji nods. She follows him, finally, up the spiraling staircase reminiscent of a denuded seashell. The second floor is spacious, done in the colors of sand and stone, a thick shoji-style screen of frosted glass letting onto a balcony overlooking the sea.

To the west wing is the first bedroom, its center three-row window made of a stained-glass mosaic of multicolored mandalas. It is simply furnished: a dresser, a writing desk and a wide low bed, its fitted sheets giving off a fresh scent of laundry and little else. It mirrors a second bedroom in the east wing, with identical design and décor, both of them connected by a sleek high-ceilinged sitting space with a narrow kitchenette.

Kai, when he'd first seen the separate bedrooms, had raised an eyebrow. _Sorry she snores so loud, bro,_ he'd gruffed, clapping a hand on Haji's shoulder.

But the arrangement wasn't unusual for Saya and Haji. In their era, before the bourgeois model of the conjugal bedchamber took over, it was perfectly permissible for well-to-do couples to have different bedrooms, for reasons ranging from separate sleep schedules to adhering to genteel standards of privacy.

That's what this boils down to: _privacy_.

After her Long Sleep, she craves her own space, _any_ space, so badly. Haji, without argument, has accepted that. The room is a refuge where she has amassed her old things with each trip—the highschool memorabilia, the family photographs and girlish fripperies.

Her sword.

She wants to go there now and heft her weapon in her hands—an anchoring in time and place. But her attention is diverted by the boxes crowding the sitting room. Most are her own, full of presents from her family. Others, which she'd felt furtive about examining on past visits, open with Haji's pocketknife to a gust of mothballs and memories.

Her eyes widen. "Oh God. This is—"

Haji lifts the flap of the box, then steps back to let her pore over the treasures.

Carefully, Saya lifts out the contents. Her mind is abuzz with excitement. Here is a shawl of pale Chantilly lace from her girlhood, yellowed with age. There is a tortoiseshell haircomb, its tines caught in the fabric of musty white silk stockings—both imported from the shores of then-Peking.

Heavy volumes of books are piled beneath. An elaborately-illustrated collection of fairytales by Charles Perrault and Gianfrancesco Straparola. A handful of novellas: _Les Mystères de Paris, Salammbô,_ and her favorite, _Varney the Vampire_.

Nestled under the pile are more belongings. A delicate bottle of perfume, carrying the essence of bergamot that was fashionable in her heyday. An exquisite ormolu jewelry box, containing a silver cameo brooch, now tarnished black, and a bracelet of gold with the initials S.G carved on it. A small diary, bound in rich dark leather, is tucked beneath. When she turns its parchment pages, flowers flutter to the floor, browned and brittle.

Mementos from the Zoo's gardens.

Laughing, she gathers up the pressed blooms. "Pink roses! One from you, each afternoon."

Her Chevalier leans against the mantelshelf, his soft eyes drinking in her every reaction. "...You kept them in your diary?"

"Of course. You always chose the loveliest ones for me."

"You deserved each of them."

"That's sweet of you to say." Sighing, she traces her thumbs across the crinkly petals. "Come to think of it, you were the only person who gave me flowers for no reason but _because_. Like it was a secret just between us." She smiles, with the faintest blush. "No wonder half the household thought we were lovers."

He returns her smile. Then it fades into something vaguer, most wistful. "Flowers were all I had to offer you."

"Huh?"

Haji's eyes stay on the roses in her hands. "I was a boy when I came to you, Saya. From nothing. With nothing. My... utility was based solely on my expendability." His utility as meatsuit procured to impregnate her, he means. "Yet you were always kind to me. You made the Zoo feel like home, when I believed home lost to me altogether. As I grew older, I hoped to repay your kindness. To be fit for your trust... if not your love."

"Haji..." The unexpectedness of this stuns her to silence.

"When you took up arms against Diva, I swore to guard your back. Yet all I could do was watch you fight, and suffer." He exhales, the traceries of dark memory breaking through on his face. "I could never be your home, or your shelter. Not the way you were mine. I could never grant you the same happiness you had given me."

"I..."

Her throat is a knot. She wants to beg him: _Please don't tell me this. I can't bear to know blind I was to everything but ending the war._

 _For myself. For Diva._

"And if I had returned your feelings?" she whispers. "Would it have made anything different?"

Haji's gaze shades. "Love is its own shield, is it not?"

She is confused—but the sorrow in his tone dawns the meaning upon her. He doesn't regret that she'd never returned his feelings. He regretted that duty had consumed every iota of her life, so there was room for nothing else. A duty that she belonged to as much as it belonged to her—a dreadful marriage vow turned death-pact.

It had permitted no sharing: enduring it was her own solitary struggle.

While he'd watched, kept at an arm's length. Grieving not for himself, but for her. Because without the superstructure of love to fortify her, she'd battled unarmed and alone.

She whispers: "You've repaid me a hundred times over, Haji. You've kept me safe. And _alive_. But—" Tears threaten to surface; she blinks fiercely. "You can't stop my suffering. Not then... and not now."

Can't stop, either, the memories that are always a blow to the skull, a darkening to blood-red of all that is bright and natural, so she lives her life now in a state of hellish double-exposure, the shock of the war dragging her back one moment into nights of viscera and screams, then swinging her forward into a future of such gaping emptiness it nearly unhinges her.

In those moments, she wonders if she'd been better off dead. Out of her misery, and cured of the loneliness that has only deepened with Diva's demise.

 _Stop it._

Then Haji says: "I cannot stop your suffering. But I can at least ensure that you never suffer alone."

"Haji..."

His eyes are tender, but fearlessly direct. "Your life has been hard and dangerous, Saya. But I swore to myself, after the war, that you would never be in want again. That you would have a place, with or without me, where you could be yourself."

"Myself...?"

"Call it home, if you will. Or a rest-stop. Whatever you choose. But the choosing is entirely yours."

Moved, she can't speak for a moment. Her vision blurs with tears. In the low light, he is a rippling apparition, at once darkly elegant and achingly familiar.

 _Hers_.

She's always thought of him that way, never mind the abundant arrogance of it. Her sanctuary and sword, her unfailing ace of spades.

But now, she realizes, with a start, that he is all but pledging to be _hers_ in a different way. In her license to touch him. To count the dark spikes of his eyelashes. To know the taste of his mouth, and his fingertips, and his skin.

All the secrets that pass only between lovers. All the things she'd carved out of their relationship, to keep it cold and hard and ruthless. Not realizing that the missing piece would continue to ache for years afterward, like a raw wound.

 _Mine._

 _He's mine._

Then Haji catches her gaze, and holds it. She finds herself sidling past the cardboard boxes, the crinkled flowers dropping away. The toes of her pink suede booties come into contact with the glossy black of his shoes, and then her body melts into his, his arms passing around her, a cradle in which all things, the fleeting and ordinary touches of the past, and the deep and tenuous sensations of present, blur together into a soft depthless dark.

A dark to fall into.

She lifts her good hand to caress his scarred jaw, thumb stroking the lips. Shivers when he catches it with his teeth, not a bite but a cool curl of tongue. His eyes hold a strange interior glow.

Blushing, she whispers, "I already have a place that's all mine. I have you, don't I?"

He lets her thumb go to smile. "Always."

"Then that's all I need. I hope... it is for you, too."

Haji's swathed Chiropteran claw covers her hand. He squeezes tightly. "A thousand times over, Saya. There is no one else I could belong with."

"Did you ever try to? With anyone else, I mean?"

"No one could ever take your place."

It sounds like a tactful sidestep. Her smile wobbles. "Wouldn't? Shouldn't? Couldn't?"

"Shall not." He drops a fluttering kiss to her brow. "Will not." Tender kisses on her closed eyelids. "Cannot." A kiss like a sweet full-stop to her mouth. "Ever."

She feels his assertion in her body, closer to gospel than appeasement. Her hand tightens on his claw, cupped over his jaw where she feels the steady vibration of his heartbeat.

"You've dared so much for me," she whispers. "I wish I could do the same. Be ready to dare it all. To give you everything you want."

"I only want you to be happy."

She knows he'd say that. It is what he's quietly repeated over the past weeks, whenever she grows fretful with her own stalling about their relationship, and reinforcement seems necessary.

It shouldn't hurt so much, but it does. Especially because she knows he means every word.

That's what compels her to say, "I want to give you everything, anyway."

"What?"

"I'm saying I'm ready to, um—"

And then she stops, because how exactly do you approach this? To say _Have sex_ is too blunt. _Sleep together_? She can already picture him raising a dry eyebrow _. Go all the way_. Passable, but still inadequate. Why do they call it _going all the way_ when, for her, it is the continuation of a conversation she and Haji have already been having, in stops and starts, across the decades?

Not a beginning or an end, but a _becoming_?

Then Haji rescues her from the disaster of semantics. "There is no reason to rush into this."

"But—"

He puts her back, gently. "It has been a long day. You should rest."

"Oh, come on. Where's your sense of spontaneity?" A tiny pink-cheeked smile. "Is it because you're wearing goofy boxers under your suit? Something with polka dots or puppies?"

Now he _does_ raise an eyebrow. "I prefer cat-prints, myself."

Saya's breath puffs out in laughter. Each time, it is gratifying to realize that even in the midst of intense conversations, the intimacy between them never fades.

At her laugh, Haji's own body relaxes, notch by notch, leaving pure affection behind. Seizing her chance, she burrows closer. His skin gives off no heat under the clothes: a night-temperature coolness. But when she leans up on tiptoe, he meets her lips with a kiss that is at once hot and trancy.

Lighting her up and melting her inside.

Shivering, Saya flows against him. Lets the kiss deepen, feeding on itself. The touch of his tongue, soft, electric, draws a small sound from her. Haji lets off a throaty hum of his own, and the noise echoes through her. Takes the shape of thoughtless longing, so she suddenly wants to touch and taste and gnaw him everywhere, even as the impatience to have him inside is stronger.

 _Mine, mine, mine._

It is a refrain that pulses with her heart. Closer to necessity than prosaic lust.

"Come to bed," she whispers into his parted lips.

"Saya—"

Kissing him again, she slips her fingers into his waistband. Tugs him, with a soft insistence, in the direction of the bedrooms.

Except she isn't familiar enough with the villa to navigate so easily. They skid off the wall to tumble amongst the cardboard boxes. The upended contents spill everywhere.

"Oof!"

Startled, Saya finds herself caught beneath Haji in the dusty avalanche, her face likewise caught in his hands. Her whole body is thrown-open, throbbing; his weight holds her immobilized with a helplessness she's never experienced before.

Is that—exciting? Or frightening?

Unsteadily, she wriggles out from under him. "S-Sorry."

Haji simply helps her to her feet. "Let me put everything away."

" _Later_. Right now, I-I want..."

She breaks off. Her eyes fall on what one of the boxes has divulged: familiar dresses in the _robe à la polonaise_ cut of decades past—one a soft lavender with a frilly collar of Reticella lace, the next a day-gown of springtime pink, and the last a crepey extravaganza of Muscovite velvet in dark red, the gathered fabric of the skirt meant for a bustle to shape it to fullness.

Stunned, she lifts out the last dress. "This was my _devantiere_!"

"I remember," Haji murmurs. "You often wore it when we went horseriding."

"It was my favorite. It had a nice split up the skirt so I could ride astride—"

Unaccountably, she feels her cheeks flush. Perhaps _riding_ is the wrong—or right?—subject for the moment.

Clearing her throat, she gathers up the heaped fabrics to return to their box. Something tumbles from under the voluminous layers of skirts—a framed photo.

It clatters at her feet. She kneels to retrieve it, then freezes.

"Oh."

Haji frowns. "What is it?"

"It's... Joel."

The first Joel—her beloved father and benevolent jailer. He peers at her from a photograph she has never seen before: a daguerreotype in an oval frame, his seated shape at once diminutive and distinguished in a dark evening suit with a tweed waistcoat, his favored pocketwatch dangling on a chain.

Saya stares at his deeply-lined face, at the brush mustache and half-lidded eyes, somehow expecting the sight of him to summon up the essence of what he'd been to her—a gaze that was all mild kindness, the scent of tobacco and spice oils, the distant paternal affection that expressed itself in hugs and head-pats and presents. All the pieces that would still connect him to her, carried forward into this new world, into the new life she is ready to begin after avenging his death, and the loss of their home.

But the photograph stays dull and strange in her hands. A reminder of all Joel's vanity and mistakes—and her own.

Her eyes fall on the second person in the photograph. She blinks, unable at first to comprehend what she is seeing. Then the shock leaps at her like a hand closing around the throat, so she chokes.

Concerned, Haji draws nearer. "Saya?"

"That—that's—"

A girl who looks like Saya—but is not.

She kneels by Joel's feet, not like a cherished child, but a pet. No—something more debased than that. A _thing_. Her posture is furtive: shoulders hunched, head hung awkwardly, as if slapped. Her clothes are a frayed cotton chemise, unbuttoned to show ribs that stand out like ladders under small breasts tipped with dark rosettes of nipples. Her hair tumbles into her face, not quite concealing the smudge of bruising on her cheek.

The sepia bleeds the color out of her blue eyes. Yet they seem to leap out of the frame, hollow and haunted, a _memento mori_ portrait come to life.

"...Diva."

Her sister, her enemy, her other self. Staring from beyond the centuries with that awful look of hers—full of bottomless hunger and a nearly unholy serenity that belies the possessive curl of Joel's hand around her nape.

His prized test subject, captured forever by the camera's eye.

 _Oh God. Oh God._

The portrait slips from her fingers. It shatters on the hardwood floor—a tinkling echo like Diva's song.

Stricken, she drops to gather up the mess. Haji kneels at the same time. "Saya, careful—glass!"

Too late. Her palm splits neat and deep on the shards. Blood sluices out.

Wincing, Haji reaches for her. "Saya—"

She evades him. Her attention stays fixed on the photo. The disorienting glow of Diva's gaze, the mad misery of it, stuns her. Her own eyes go hot, then blurry. A tear splatters the spiderwebbed frame.

Haji's voice cuts in and out of her ears like a radio on the fritz "...should have left this for later...it was too soon for...please let me..."

He reaches for the photo. She jerks it away. The pain blossoms red and rhythmic in her wounded hand. But she barely feels it. Barely feels _anything_ around a humming ratcheting up inside herself.

 _You're the one who unlocked the door and released me..._

 _Why is it only happening to me?_

 _Saya...I'm scared..._

Oh God, and how Saya had begged to die with her...

"Saya—"

Haji's cool hands grasp her shoulders; she realizes she's crumpled to the floor, bones gone to jelly, the photograph—wet and red-edged now—in her torn palm. Her whole body shakes with sobs.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry."

Who is she apologizing to? Impossible to say.

Gently, Haji scoops her up. Lays her down on the chaise, and inspects her torn hand, feeling her palm and fingertips with soft tracings of his thumb. Assured nothing is damaged, he fetches a moistened handkerchief to clean off the blood.

Kneeling before her, he radiates a heartbreaking distress.

"Forgive me," he whispers. "I should have put those boxes away. You were in no state to do this. Not yet."

She can't answer. Sobs bubble up thickly; it is hard to breathe. Her broken wrist, in its cast, throbs crazily. But on her other hand, the gash closes up, as if it never was.

Strange, how her body works. How she can be so torn open with giddy lust one moment, yet closed-up with misery the next.

"It's n-not that, Haji," she stammers. "I'm just—"

 _Wishing I was dead._

 _Wondering why I'm not, when Diva is._

"Sssh." Gently, Haji takes her teary face in his hands, kissing her forehead. His eyes are so blue, like Diva's, but pale and calm. Gazing into them, that familiar quiet descends, her breath and pulse slowing. A cool sweetness that is like a spoonful of sugar, a lungful of air.

A glass half-full.

Sniffling, she dabs at her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I wanted tonight to be special. Not this—mess."

"It doesn't matter, Saya." Taking her right hand, he kisses the pale curl of fingers peeping from the plaster. "We can revisit this later."

"I don't _want_ to revisit it later. We've already put it off for decades!"

"We can survive putting it off for longer. Until—"

"Until what? I'm _sane_ again?"

He flinches. "That is not what I meant."

" _It is_. I'm not—all there. Don't you think I realize that?"

The ache in her wrist ratchets up—a reminder of exactly how she'd broken it, two days earlier. The strange voice that had stirred her awake at three a.m, as if from the edge of a dream. The way it had lured her, barefoot and shivery, out of her muggy room in Omoro and into the moonlit streets.

 _Saya..._

It was such a familiar voice—sweat and coaxing as the night breeze on her skin. Yet so faint that it barely registered over Saya's breathing, the thud of her own heart. It seemed to spiral down through the dead black of space, tiny motes of sonic dust catching in her ears. It caught her and held her perfectly still.

 _Please._

 _Come with me._

Then: a slithering movement to her left. Alarmed, she'd swung toward it. The falling moonlight picked apart a shape of glossy blackness, a faint impression of scales and glinting blue eyes.

 _Saya..._

 _"Saya!"_

The shout had overlapped the _screech_ of tires and blaring horns—followed by that awful metallic _crunch_ that sent her flying, agony singing through her body, a deafening vibrato like the inside of a struck bell.

She'd have been crushed completely by the oncoming truck if Haji hadn't snatched her away. She can't remember the details of the rescue—shock, disorientation. But Kai and Diva's twins told her about it, later at the hospital. How her eyes were blank and red, and she didn't recognize anyone, and spoke in a language that wasn't English-French-Japanese, but something rasping, garbled, ceaseless.

Lunacy distilled to its purest essence.

She can't remember any of that. Nothing, except her family gathered around her bed afterward, pale faces knit with concern, as if they could practically see the craziness seeping out of her.

The only one who didn't mention it was Haji. He just smoothed the damp hair from her forehead, murmuring, _Next time,_ _I will watch over you better. So this does not happen again._

So _what_ didn't happen again?

So she didn't float off into an absence that was tantamount to insanity? So she didn't try seeking out the death that refused to meet her halfway?

Shaking it off, she says quietly: "Haji, I know I'm crazy."

"Saya— _no_. That's not—"

"I am. Don't deny it." She swallows. "But crazy or not, I wouldn't want this if it wasn't real. If it wasn't _you_. Haji—I _want_ us to be together. We've waited so long. Why shouldn't we begin now, when we're finally here with nothing awful distracting us?" Swiping at her face, she tries a watery smile. "I know you think I'm not ready. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. But I've not been ready for half the disasters I've faced. If this is a disaster too ... well. At least it won't break the trend."

She means it as a joke. But the moment the words leave her lips, the room vanishes in an acrid wash of tears. Crumpling, she buries her face in her hands.

God, maybe this is Diva's revenge from beyond? Taking every happy moment in Saya's life, and twisting it into a sick farce.

She might almost be in the room right now, staring at Saya with twinkly malice in her blue eyes.

"Saya—sssh."

Haji circles her in, but she flinches: the vision hasn't yet loosened its grip. In the next breath, she melts against him. The sobs pour out of her, softly at first, then harder and faster. Sighing, he folds her closer. Cool and solid, his arms tight enough to contain the entire convulsive storm of her emotions.

He's always been so patient. She feels, now as then, like he can absorb all her turmoil. Supplant it with absolute calm.

Amazing, how she'd not yet realized it...

Even crying is a comfort, in his arms.

"Haji," she hiccups. "So many bad things have happened. But now we're together. That _has_ to mean something good. You once said I was your reason for being. I'd like to believe—" She chokes. "I'd like to believe it's still true."

Stunned, he brings both her hands to his lips. His eyes conceal nothing. "Of course it is, Saya."

"Then prove it." She leans into him, their foreheads together. "Make love to me."

He bows his head over her hands. She feels him absorbing her words. Absorbing, as if for the first time, her presence. Then something in him eases. Doubtful, tentative, he gazes up at her. Eyes full of a million prayers. All for her.

"Saya, are you sure?"

He always asks this. Always takes care to obtain her consent—before kissing her, touching her.

Tonight, the stakes are higher.

"Haji..."

He waits tensely. As if his entire life rests on her sentence.

A smile moves behind her face. " _Yes_."

Even now, her pronouncement is sacred to him. The tempest in his gaze clears, going blue and soft again. Then all at once, his arms sweep around her. The agony of psychic distance explodes.

Suddenly, she is snatched into his embrace. His lips are cool, almost chilly on hers. But there is an unexpected fire in his kisses. Then his mouth presses hers open; his tongue touches hers and the fire flows seamlessly into liquid, from _Oh_ to _Yes_. All the things he can't say strangled back and poured out in lips and teeth and tongue, in the circle of his arms around her.

"Saya," he sighs, and it is devotion and debauchery in two syllables. "Saya, Saya..."

The sound leaps electrically up her body. He moves to her throat, tracing the arc with his teeth, and her head lolls back, a strange displacement creeping in. For a moment, she is outside herself, looking on. A man in dark evening clothes enveloping a woman in a gauzy pink dress, his dark head buried in her neck, her own tossed back extravagantly, lips parted to show fangs.

As if he is weeping and she is mid-bite.

Then Haji catches her mouth again, and she falls dizzily back into herself.

Without breaking the kiss, he scoops her up and rises. Bears her with swift soundless ease to the closest bedroom. Hers—she can tell by the angle of the mosaic windows. Moonlight sets the stained-glass tints aglow, a psychedelia of fairy colors.

Clumsily, they spill across the bed. The moment balances mid-fall, precarious. They both know something is going to happen. Something that not only turns the tides on their future, but on their past as comrades-in-arms, queen and consort, childhood friends. Because they cannot simply be any of those things anymore. They are taking the first steps into uncharted terrain.

From a state of being to a torn-open, terrifying _becoming_.

Gasping, Haji breaks the kiss. His eyes burn preternaturally bright into hers, and Saya's heart stumbles over itself. Then his hand comes up, curling around her good one. Their fingers twine together. And suddenly she is both off-balance yet right at home.

Because this _is_ her home. Because this is _Haji_.

No matter the sea-changes around her, inside her, she is safe with him.

A glass half-full.


	4. Ten Lessons

_Okaaaay._

 _*Ostentatious throat clearing*_

 _Chapter 4! Wherein our heroes enjoy some long overdue, um, bonding-times. Yeah. All minors please desist reading at this point. Also expect the fic to begin earning its M/Explicit rating from hereon out. Sexuality, in all its dynamic vagaries, is very much a theme in this fic, especially since one of its angles is exploring Saya and Haji's evolving relationship. Nothing too dreadfully traumatic, but no heart-shaped beds and rainbows either._

 _Feedback is awesome and I crave it like all things chocolate! Thank you so much to everyone who left their amazing comments last chapter - each one makes me all bouncy and revs me up to finish the next installment as soon as possible. Keep those yummy reviews coming guys! :x_

* * *

From the idyllic era at the Zoo to her Okinawa days as a schoolgirl, Saya's fantasies of a lover were so vague.

Schoolmates failed to capture her interest. Pornography was practically a horror film. Romantic heroes from steamy novels were an impossible daydream. To the extent she'd ever thought about sex at all, she'd imagined it as a ballroom dance, to the soundtrack of soft sighs and sweet whispered nothings.

Her imagination was tepid. She lacked the physical language.

Learning it, she finds, is as twisted and bittersweet as only decades of history can make it.

For a moment, she and Haji stay sprawled together in bed. Mouths caught together in a hungry eloquence of kisses, his long shape draped across hers, long curls brushing her skin. Each touch seems to pull at the lines of her body, a tide of unsteady want.

Yet the cool touch of his lips keeps her anchored.

 _Lesson one._

A kiss doesn't just pass a sentence between bodies. It is the punctuation that defines its entire structure.

They break on gasps. Haji's entire frame is bunched with strain. But his eyes are soft and full of questions.

"Are you all right?"

"Mm." _So far, so good._ Her gaze dips shyly. "Could you, um, turn down the lights?"

He raises his eyebrows. _I've seen it all before._

"Please?"

He obeys, extending an arm—eyes still on hers—to hit the control panel at the bedside table. The room darkens all around them, the stark lines and smooth surfaces of bodies merging inexorably with the multicolored crenellations of the window.

But Haji stays supercharged and solid. _Alive_.

"Tell me," he whispers, "Tell me what to do."

Grounding as much as generosity, she realizes. Voice. Touch. Whatever keeps her in the moment.

If she weren't so moved by his kindness, she'd tease: _Do your worst._

Instead, she takes his Chiropteran claw, stripping off the scratchy bindings. It is a solid mass of metallic knuckles and iridescent red scales. The black claws are sharp as ravens' beaks. Strange that something so scabrous and terrifying would be so _welcome_.

Deliberately, she drags the claw beneath her dress. Its coldness sinks into her skin. Her legs and arms are covered in gooseflesh; her tearstained face is blotchy with blushes.

Quietly, she says, "I liked what you were doing before."

Encouragement for him to resume; to be bolder.

In the dimness, Haji's pupils dilate within glowing rings of blue. His concern is palpable. But it is threaded with a recognition of urgency.

Gathering her close, he lets his lips play with hers, until the kiss melts from his, to hers, to theirs. His body, bracketing hers, grows _heavy_. But she needs that—a mooring against that spacey feeling from before, as if she is floating outside herself, looking on...

At what? A head-spinning shocker? An undeserved gift?

One or the other. It depends on how she seizes it.

Clumsily one-handed, she begins to unbutton his shirt. Yanks the hem from his trousers, tugging on the zipper. Haji makes a tight, unfamiliar noise. Almost a growl. Then both his cool hands are on her, under her dress. Getting to what he wants, even as she works on him. His fingers are steady—but within that shell of steadiness, she practically feels his nerves buzz.

 _Lesson two._

Need makes Haji mindful, not selfish. A dark articulation of lust in a root system of pure love.

Dress, shirt, belt, trousers, underwear. Everything scatters like plumage to the floor. The coolish air raises goosebumps on Saya's bare skin. Her hands fly up to cover herself, a helpless reflex of shyness. But Haji catches them in his Chiropteran claw, pinning them—tenderly—back.

Stripped of his own coverings, his thinness is intriguing. Bone and sinew, more a streamlined weapon than a sculpture. The ambiance shows up how pale he is, coloring the tracery of scars spanning down his torso to different hues: green, red, blue.

Yet none of it detracts from his allure. In the colorful ambiance, he almost glows.

Lip bit, Saya skirts her gaze lower. The blush turns to a burn. He looks unabashedly, intimidatingly, _indecently_ ready. But she can feel how leashed he is.

"We can stop whenever you want," he says, and his voice is a shade hoarser than usual, "Just tell me."

"I d-don't want us to stop."

"Saya—"

"Sssh. Come here."

She coaxes him under the covers. The full drape of his body, bony and cool, makes her shiver. His breath is cool too, gusting shakily across her lips. She parts them to share it—kisses that leave them both punch-drunk and panting. The storm of his hair tangles around their faces; the scent is layered in soap and rosin, same as his hands, but also something sweet as rainfall, which makes Saya burrow into him and never want to leave.

Nuzzling his scarred jaw, she whispers, "You're like a marble bust in this light."

His smile is wry. "Full of cracks?"

" _Beautiful_. And solid. And, um—" Their eyes meet, and she blushes. "I-I'm not good at this."

"This?"

"Flattering a man in bed."

"Flattery?" He stretches over her, sleek and languid; she thinks strangely of a wolf, all predatory grace and night-stillness, yet with traces of human in the eyes. "Flattery implies deception."

"N-No deception. I'm just—telling you how I feel about you. The stuff that's in my head."

"Why not show me instead?"

 _Oh_ , she thinks, a hot tremor racing up and down her body—the shaky, savored realization that he is here, nude, on top of her, and that she is doing this. That _they_ are.

Possessively, she circles him closer. Lets her hands take their own path, tracing down the span of his body. His skin feels smooth as a spill of cream. The fretwork of scars on his body are an intriguing contrast. She sketches them with her fingertips, trying to let each touch talk for her. To telegraph how glad she is to be with him, how giddy and grateful. Haji stays still while she explores. Shivers, and smiles, as if her curiosity charms him. She understands that he will wait forever, if need be—and that excites her like nothing else can.

 _Lesson three._

Here as elsewhere, Haji will be the only one she trusts enough to shed her inhibitions with. Even if she can barely trust herself.

Tenderly, she traces her bandaged palm from the crown of his skull to the killing-zone along his nape. Strokes down to the spot between his shoulderblades, the secret base where wings unfurl, staying there, circling with her thumb.

 _I love that you belong to me_ , she tries to say. _I love that you're trusting me with your body._

It is the nearest she can get to: _I love you._

Haji's breath hitches gorgeously when her good hand drops to his groin. She takes the tour over rough hair and smooth skin; strange shapes and secret flutters. Hardness. Dampness. _Heat_. A tiny frisson, half-panic, asks how exactly they will fit.

Then Haji's eyes flick to hers, at once hazy and luminous. Saying, she thinks, _Don't be afraid_ , without a word. Gently, he takes her hand. Carries it first to his mouth, where he sucks on the fingers, and the palm—a long, lewd, adoring drag of tongue that darts down her body, a heat-bloom of delicious shock.

He brings her hand down. Molds her palm more closely to his length, a sword-grip in reverse. The cadence he sets is much the same. A rapid stropping from base to head, again and again, until her own reflexes surface and take command.

 _Lesson four._

In bed, as in the battlefield, both their bodies are primed for fast motion and wordless cooperation. They are seldom flat-footed for long.

As she keeps on, Haji's skin becomes a wilder temperature against hers. His mouth is the same, hot and unrelenting and frantic.

Then he makes his move. Trapping both her wrists, he pins her hands over her head—but it is a gentlemanly restraint she can break easily. He hums down her neck, along her breastbone, nuzzling under her upraised arms to bite the ticklish pits. Saya's breath spangles into giggles. She tries to squirm away. Then he is swooping in for another kiss, a greedy non sequitur of teeth and tongue, until it becomes more a moan than a laugh bubbling from her mouth into his.

 _Lesson five._

Taciturn as he is, Haji's touch tells its own story perfectly.

His mouth and hands worship everywhere: the whorls of her ears, the hollow of her throat, the shadows of her clavicles, the cage of her ribs. Her breasts win the most devotion. He frames them in his palms, cool on warm. The way he buries his face between them, openmouthed, says, _You are so beautiful_. The wet stripes of tongue across the soft undersides say _,_ _I want you._ The careful teeth scraping at each nipple say: _Please trust me._

Mewing, Saya tries to break down her own sense of him into cognition. But it blossoms first into irregular words like _Cool_ and _Textured_ and _Smooth_ , and then into nothing but a disjointed soup of _Oh, Oh, Oh_ , that sluices from her brain down to her groin.

Her fingers sink in his hair, tangling in the loosened curls. She tugs when he nuzzles her sloping belly, as if listening avidly to the gurglings inside. His hands smooth with fascination across her thighs, parting them. When he digs his thumbs, not-so-gentlemanly, into the steel hardness of muscle beneath, her eyes flash red and a high raw sound escapes her mouth.

 _Lesson six._

Her strongest erogenous zones run parallel to the arterial network beneath her skin. The same spots that ignite her into a defensive frenzy in battle—carotid, brachial, radial, iliac, femoral—transform her body into a surface of liquid sensation at the brush of Haji's lips and fingertips.

And then— _oh_ —he is sinking downward, so graceful, that easy flow of muscle. Holding her by the hips, he burrows his mouth into the moist cleft of her thighs with a hungry sigh. Her legs spasm. Gasping, she half-sits up.

"Don't—!"

Haji's eyes, catching hers, call to mind not slices of sky, but the blue flame of a blowtorch. The sight races up her spine the same way, spitting hot sparks.

"Tell me." He nuzzles the inside of her thigh. "If you want to stop, Saya, please tell me."

"I-I don't—"

She doesn't know what she wants to say. The words are irrelevant, a wash-in, wash-out of sound. _Devrais-je arrêter?—Je ne sais pas..._

 _Lesson seven._

They lapse into French whenever they fight—but apparently also when they fool around. Strange, because it's been ages since French was her default mode of communication. But everything about Haji bypasses the layers of ephemera, to occupy the space where she keeps her first memories.

Her first self.

Shivering, Saya slides her hands through his hair: permission, trepidation. Then suddenly his mouth is _there_. He drags his tongue across her in a long slow stripe. Wet, sloppy, _savoring_. It is the softest touch—yet so exquisitely shrill that her mind whites out.

Goosebumps burst across her skin. Gasping, almost sobbing, she melts across the mattress. Her thighs tremble, clenching round Haji's head. He presses them firmly back, opening her wide. Sets to lapping, over and over, at that one spot that sends heat flaring across her skin, and from deep inside. Tentative at first, then teasing her in fluid swirls until the breath goes short in her lungs and her hips stir and stutter.

Within moments it builds into a communicatory cadence. His astonishing mouth: kissing, sucking, licking. Her own body: caught in jerky tremors and escalating cries of delight inseparable from distress.

It's almost too much—a sweetness her nerves don't know how to cope with. Like a touch-me-not, her body keeps folding into itself, resisting.

A leftover of the Vietnam massacre. An awful terror clinging to her psyche.

"Ha-Haji." Panting, she tugs his hair with her one good fist. "Come—come up here."

"Hm?" His eyes, pale and catlike, flash across the slope of her belly. "What's wrong? Am I hurting you?"

"N-No." _God, no._ "But you could, um. Go in now?"

"Let me bring you off first? It will be easier if—"

She whines. "No, it's too much. I—I want you closer. I want to kiss you."

This seems to startle him. But he hesitates for barely a moment before he climbs across her, openmouthed, sipping up the sweat from her damp skin. Arrives to cup her face in both hands, pressing her own salty flavor back to her in kisses.

It would be mortifying—except her body is twisted into knots of impatience. She wants the main event over with _now_ : the pain, the mystery, the fuss. Wants them to get to the next part, and the next, until they are a couple, two normal people with no ugly past holding them back.

They break off on gasps. Haji's eyes hold a hungry and helpless gleam. As if he's waiting for her to come to her senses, shove him off with a scream.

She doesn't.

Instead she tugs him closer, so he is braced on all fours above her. His palms—scale and skin—fit themselves to her kneecaps, spreading her wide beneath the curve of his body. Their eyes meet; his face is trapped in unsteady lines of want.

"Saya—?"

"Now— _please_."

Haji makes a noise that is like a throat being slashed; a hitch of breath, a liquid gasp. He doesn't enter her right away. He runs the length of himself along her drenched seam, again and again, the light teasing only stirring her higher, making her shiver and mew. Then he _pushes_ , not all at once but in slick, short increments—and it's as if _she_ is being slashed too. Fullness and friction and _pain_ that is like stars exploding red-hot and awful through her.

The pain that comes from stretching muscles she'd given up on. From breaking open places she'd locked up tight.

A cry forces itself out of her mouth. He stops it with a kiss. His eyes are a short-circuited blue, their brightness anchoring her against the sensations splitting through her.

Carrying her into heat, and agony, and _life_.

It seems an eternity before he is all the way in. Then it isn't a slash anymore but an ache, filling out every empty space inside her. The corners of her eyes trickle tears. Her mouth is gaspy at the electric shock of connection, the way it leaves her pulsing, paralyzed.

"... _O-oh..._ "

"Saya—are you—?"

"...I-I'm fine."

He kisses her wet eyelashes. "...Your face says otherwise."

"Then s-s-stop staring at me!"

Haji smooths a palm over her hair. He is breathing heavily, a living bridge of muscle and bone poured across her. "I can—stop altogether."

" _No_." It is provoked out of her in a cry; she can _feel_ , in the knots of tension in his musculature, what the offer costs him. "I'm okay. I promise."

He doesn't call her out on the white-lie. Just stays, perfectly still, over her trembling body. Dark hair spills down around his head, strands caught in his eyelashes. She's never had such a perfect vantage to his face. His gaze is hot, possessed, beautiful as the pages of a solved equation. It _terrifies_ her.

Or would—if it were anyone but Haji.

Longing shudders through her; she clutches his arms. "Please. Keep going."

Haji exhales a jittery breath she didn't realize he was holding. Then he begins: a gentle rolling rhythm. She folds herself around him, nails skittering down his spine. Too overstretched for pleasure, no matter how slow he goes. She knows the tricks, at least. Breathe in and out. Unclench her hands and thighs. Match the rhythm of her hips to his.

 _Lesson eight._

Like a duel or a dance; the steps to sex are surprisingly easy. Nearly second nature, if not instinct.

What frightens her is the escalating sensory overload. The cool gusts of his breaths in her hair. The cool sweat filming his nail-streaked back. The cool slide of his skin against hers. She bites her lip each time he inches slickly out; lets her breath out on an overwhelmed shudder-sob as he sinks back in—hardness and stretch and a splitting burn.

In that claustrophobic moment, his weight isn't a refuge but a trap. She half-wants to shove him off. To scramble out of her own crowded body before it falls into chaos.

 _I can't do this._ It is a scream sounding in her head. _I can't I can't I can't—_

Then he kisses her.

It gets inside her, water into parched earth. Finds all her negative spaces and fills them with something cool, still, calm. His lips are cool too, and soft, and he holds her head in his widespread hands like a delicate glass bowl he is sipping from. Kisses melting one into the next, each one so precise, yet the total opposite of perfunctory. Each one quieting the high-pitched hum beneath her skin into shivering silence.

Like she is listening, with her whole body, to a language that can only be understood here.

"I love you," he whispers.

Her eyes fly open on a jolt of déjà vu. Through the webbing of hair, his face is the same: cut from another time and place.

The night at the Met, cohering from shards of memory, piercing her consciousness like a butterfly on a pin.

Tears rise. Shivering, Saya folds herself tighter around him, small palms tracing his spine. It still hurts crazily—yet it is the sweetest ache. She'd thought he was lost, hideously, irrevocably, but he is right here and he _loves_ her, and she dares to think she might be whole enough to love him too.

It is the opposite of what she's accustomed to in her blown-apart life: a blessing.

Mewing, she kisses him again. Works her hips, clumsy and coaxing, until Haji shudders against her, begging with his body. He sinks in heavily, rocking deeper. It shocks a gasp out of her; she bites it down. Doesn't dare spoil this. Not when his expression is such a beautiful twist of adoration. Not when she can feel how close he is getting, radiating her borrowed heat. Not when his kisses lure her closer and closer to her own body, so she suddenly comes home to a place where her arms and legs are folded around him, his motions catching something inside her, a dizzy red blossoming that makes her open like a flower in his arms, her cries speeding up by hitches. And then they are moving effortlessly together to the hot unfurling music of vivace and vibrato, sprezzatura and sex.

An insatiable song of call and response.

By degrees, Haji's calm surface peels away. Emotions flutter across his face like the pages of a songbook. Bliss. Despair. Gratitude. Everything spelled out in alphabets and inkblots.

It thrills Saya. The way his gaze goes so bright the rims of her eyes sting. The way he turns radiant in her arms, the spilling colors of an infrared heat-signature. The way his gasps escalate into hiss-groans as she flexes around him, muscles working beneath the skin until his hips start losing rhythm, sweet and wild. She even likes the wet noises of their bodies, slaps and slickness and that friction that makes her burn differently now—a belly-ache of hunger that spins, spirals, _spikes_ into a meow of shock that is sister to satisfaction.

 _Lesson nine._

Here, or anywhere else, Haji will always embody the elements she's craved for as long as memory stretches, the way someone else wishes for water or shelter or _home_.

And then Haji's climax surges beneath his skin and leaps out of him, riding on a ripple of taut muscle and a beautiful ragged cry that softens, softens, softens with his entire body, into stillness.

They both tremble as he collapses on her.

Gasping, Saya holds him close. Smooths the juts of his shoulderblades, the ridges of his spine—everything damp with sweat. He is still half-hard inside her, half-crushing on top of her. A moment later, he eases off. There is a shudder at the slow suction of her body emptied of his. She wants to cry at the absence.

But overlaying that is a buzz of joy.

 _Lesson ten._

There _are_ no lessons to sex—to its hellishness and sweetness that reshapes itself moment to moment—that can be useful for next time. Nothing except the ache, too soon, not soon enough, _for_ a next time.

Sighing, Haji hitches her closer. One leg flung over hers, an arm encircling her, as if afraid she might disappear. Dazed, Saya cozies her head against the column of his neck. Watches the colorful fractals in the mosaic beyond the pearly point of his shoulder: red, green, gold, blue.

A world without change, yet she feels like a stranger in her skin. Stirred-up and heat-soaked and just. _Strange_.

Until Haji's kiss seals her back in her bones. "...Forgive me, Saya."

"Mmm? What for?"

"Hurting you." His gaze shades, self-reproachful. "I was too hasty."

"Sssh. That was perfect." Sweet and scary and hurtful—yet perfect. And more perfect still: twined together and trading whispers in the dark, like a normal couple. She flushes all over. "It's almost like—I can still feel you inside me. Everywhere. And now it's like... I don't know. Like I used to feel after a high jump. Like something really good has happened."

"I am glad." He swallows. "I feared that—"

"What?"

He kisses her eyelids—first one, then the other. "I feared... I was daydreaming you."

The simplicity of his confession deepens her flush. Reminds her that Haji trusts this new reality as little as she does. Their ugly past crowds in too darkly.

But they have this moment. A chance to go forward.

Burrowing closer, she kisses the scar along his throat, where his pulse ticks. His cooling skin has a saltine, mouthwatering tang. It suits him nearly as much as soap and rosin. Her fangs tingle. She has a sudden visceral image of burying her teeth deep into his neck, the salty richness of blood flooding her mouth—no daydream, but a Queen claiming her due.

 _Stop_.

Bloodlust would be an obscene interloper in the shelter of his arms. Here, now, she wants to keep the two halves of herself—girl and monster—as separate as Venus from Mars.

Then Haji asks: "Thirsty?"

She jerks, then relaxes. He means water, not blood.

"I'm fine. Don't you dare move."

She cozies her head under chin. Shivers as his cool hand finds its way down her body, nestling between her sticky thighs. The gesture startles her—it is so possessive and intimate. A reminder of the easy connectivity between their bodies that goes even beyond lovemaking.

"I can't believe... this was our first time," she whispers. "It doesn't feel like it. More like something that's always been true."

Haji nuzzles her hair. "I would have held off longer. Given you time to get used to—"

"To what? Us? I think over a century's wait is long enough." She tips a kiss to his lips. Draws back, a little, to fix him with a soft burning stare. "Please. Don't erase that. I wouldn't want to, any more than I'd erase our first kiss. I was so sure... it'd be our last."

"Forgive me, Saya. If I could have returned to you sooner—"

"You would have. I know." She pouts into his skin, half-shy, half-sulky. "I'm still mad at you though."

"How do I make it up to you?"

"Kisses are a good start. You give tasty kisses."

A wry smile lights his face. "Do I?"

"Mmhm. Also: tingly. I'd ask how you got so good at them, but—"

He kisses her. The touch makes her think of the balms sold in old herbalists' shops; something cool yet inflaming, glittering as it sinks into the skin.

It is a few moments before she can speak. "There," she breathes against his parted lips. "That's better. Now I'm just... grumpy."

He kisses her again. "And now?"

"...Dis—disagreeable."

"...What about now?"

"...Now—mmm." Her heart flutters in her chest. The kiss is dark and sweet and sultry and seems to melt through her bones, leaving her like a spill of molasses in a bowl. Rocking closer, arms and legs encircling him, she is half-ready to begin this again. Ready to do it as many times and as many ways, until she owns this new reality as easily as her skin.

Haji manages to soften the kiss at the last moment: tender, lingering. Draws back to whisper against her lips, "...You should sleep."

"I'm not tired."

He smooths the tangled hair from her brow. "Perhaps so. But if you keep letting me touch you..."

"And if I do?"

His eyes darken. He takes her good hand and brings it to his groin. The warning is implicitly explicit. _Don't start something you can't finish._

Saya shivers. There is excitement, and uneasy awe, at feeling her effect on him. Awe too, at this dimension of Chevaliers that had never occurred to her before. They heal in the space of heartbeats. They are never weighed down by exhaustion or sleep. Yet she'd never imagined that those powers had uses beyond the battlefield.

Or is that nothing to do with Chevaliers at all—but with Haji's appetites as a man?

She shivers again as he looms close, the full glow of his eyes shining on her.

"I mean it," she whispers. "I-I want us to do this every night. Every night for the rest of—"

 _For the rest of our lives._

Except she is only here for three years, give or take. Three years, barely half a handspan ... how must that time seem to him? An eyeblink. One moment she is here. The next she is gone. While Haji remains where he is, _semper fidelis, semper solus_ , eternally young and beautiful but with no one to share his existence with.

 _It's not fair._

Furiously, she kisses him again. His weight, half-poured across her, is cool and heavy, but comforting too. A long bony quilt, with his mouth like the best drink of water.

"Every night," she repeats, eyes fluttering shut as he kisses down her breasts, soft nuzzlings of gratitude. "Or evening. Or afternoon. Or— _ah_!—f-f-forever."

He lets her nipple go with a lazy _pop_. "Forever sounds good."

"If I could, I would. Y-You know that, right?"

"I do, Saya. Please don't think of it now."

"I try not to. Just—" Her throat clots. "You promised earlier, that you'd never let me suffer alone. I'm sorry I can't do the same for you."

"Ssh. This is a poor line of pillow talk."

" _Pillow_ _talk_?" Giggling, she traces his scarred cheekbone with a fingertip. "Is that what we're doing?"

"Or failing to." He catches her finger between his teeth. "There are better ways to pass the time."

"Like what— _ohh_!"

His hand starfishes lower between her thighs. Fingers slipping in, gentle, instantly slick. Her breath hitches. But his touch is tender, mindful of her soreness. She shivers as he begins a whispering caress, his thumb a slow circling where she is swollen and exquisitely sensitive.

"H-Haji..."

"Sssh. Please let me." His eyelids slide down a notch, turning his expression at once ravening and adoring. "You truly are loveliest this way, Saya."

"Wh-what...?"

"Forgetting yourself. Let me give you that, if nothing else."

 _If nothing else...?_

She wants to ask what he means. But his fingers are working their magic, making the tension unbutton from her body, her joints unzipping into erotic languor. She nearly squirms away; it's too unbearably good and makes noises catch rawly in her throat. But Haji is too quick a study, his fascination for her too apparent, his touch too articulately stirring up desires that, in self-denial, she'd kept trying to bleed away into the parched expanse of the war.

Except it seems, like blood, they will keep flowing beneath her surface until she expires.

A hot ache spreads through her mending wrist. Her whole body begins doing a tense undulant dance to his touch.

"Ha-Haji, I—"

"Let it happen, Saya."

His fingers, cool and rough-tipped, become a crooking pressure inside her, thumb teasing with wet sparky flicks that make her rock into him urgently. Her own sounds sound to her like the mewls of an anguished tiger-cat, escalating to a certain pitch, up and then down, so by the end she is voiceless and nearly senseless with her pleasure, well past the verge she allows herself anymore with her own fingers. Shocks of white-hot begin crashing through her, an ink stain spreading in inverse behind her closed eyes.

Something she has felt before. Something she has to get away from.

" _Please_ —I—I can't—"

Except she already is. A wild tremoring gust from the depths of herself, her own high strange cry cutting through her ears like a Valkyrie call. As it shakes through her, she bites hard into his neck. Blood blossoms bright on her tongue. Haji's groan vibrates through her—desire overridden by blind savage _need_.

Abruptly a vision layers itself over her.

A slither of darkness. A glint of reptilian blue eyes. A hiss right in her ear: _Saya_.

Terror chews apart the threads of bliss. She wedges her hands between their bodies. " _No! No_!"

Haji obeys almost before the words leave her mouth. "—Saya? What's wrong?"

She is already stumbling out of bed. On her feet, there is residual dizziness. She sways, wobbly. Doesn't want to be naked, not when it suddenly feels like something dark and winged is swooping for the back of her neck. But there is nothing there.

Haji rises. "Saya—?"

"I-I need to be alone."

Scooping up her fallen clothes, she races to the bathroom. But she can feel him watching her.

Inside, the stark white tiles seem to echo her distress. In the mirror, her eyes seem cored too deeply into her skull, glinting red between the tangle of her hair. She stares in disorientation.

It feels as if her features are unfamiliar, recombining to be another person. Her eyes blue as arctic sky, her voice dancing up Saya's spine like icy butterflies.

 _Diva_?

Her pulse skids in her chest; she forces herself to breathe.

Turning on the faucet, she splashes her face with cold water. Outside, she can hear Haji moving around in the bedroom: stripping off the coverlets, fetching fresh sheets. Thinks, with sick regret, that she could be folded dreamily around him right now, if not for the minefield beneath the waters of her psyche, the triggers as hidden from her as creatures at the bottom of the sea.

Her clothes are piled on the floor. She fetches something from the pocket of her dress.

A bundled-up handkerchief.

Slowly, she unwraps it. Inside, the misshapen stone resembles red quartz, its sharp angles winking in the light.

After the Met bombing, it had always remained with her. In her backpack at school, next to her hospital bed during IV drips, in the pocket of her jeans at the supermarket, in the jewelry box by her bedside at night. When her Long Sleep crept in, she'd placed the item in a sealed case under the floorboards of her room, where it'd sat for ...how long?

Over thirty years. No-one had bothered to poke through her room: not Kai, not Diva's twins, not Red Shield, not even Haji.

She cups the glittering red stone. It is warm from her palms, rolling weightlessly, a beautiful thing carved from blood.

Diva's blood.

A fragment of her twin, before the Met was blown sky-high.

 _Come with me, Saya..._

Abruptly, her knees give out. Crumpling to the floor, she breaks into sobs. The unforgiving edges of the stone cut into her palm. Blood drips across the tiles, as if the rock itself is alive.

"Saya?" A shadow passes over the pencil of light where the door doesn't meet the jamb. "Saya, please let me in."

" _Leave me alone_!" she shrieks, tear-streaked face buried in her arms. " _Please_."

Regret hangs in the air. But Haji obeys.

* * *

 _Who turns down orgasms to angst over a crystallized chunk of their archnemesis?_

 _Saya, that's who._

 _Chapter 5 will, once again, be slow in coming. Expect it to fall some time toward the end of June! Hope you guys enjoyed, and feel free to leave critiques or suggestions about how this tale could be improved! Feedback is my (least harmful) drug of choice! :)_


	5. Time & Place

_Chapter 5 is up earlier than anticipated, so I'm posting it! Honestly, I'm trying to churn out as much content as I can before August gets here, because that's when my spare time becomes as scarce as toothy, toothy hens! Keep your fingers crossed for me guys! Also a huge thank you and much love to all the comments and critiques y'all are sending me - on ffnet, ao3 and tumblr alike. I take all the suggestions and questions very seriously as I craft this particular tale._

 _Speaking of which - remember that weird monster thing in the cave in ch: 2? Yeah, I forgot all about him too. But he's back, and up to no good. It's going to be an effort to coherently mesh his storyline with Saya's because the two won't converge until much later in the fic - to disastrous results. This plot is very much a slow-burn, and heavily character-centric, so I constantly have to keep the overarching theme in mind. Let me know if I lose direction or traction as we go forward!_

 _Reviews are much appreciated and will be gobbled up like tasty, tasty cookies! :)_

* * *

 _CLASS CONFIDENTIAL_

REASON: B3, 1.2 9(a)

DECLASSIFY ON 01-01-2060

MEMORANDUM FOR ALL PERSONNEL

-FORWARDED MESSAGE-

FROM: C****** A********

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

 **Test Subject 6. Batch RD-947**

 **Age: 66 Years. Male.**

 **Subject escaped during transfer to isolation clinic on 09/13/2037**

 **CAUTION: Subject is considered extremely dangerous. To be intercepted at first sighting.**

FROM: J***** T*******

TO: C****** A********

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

 **For fuck's sake. Use SOP. Quarantine island. Detain any and all residents going in and out.**

FROM: A*** P***

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

 **We have three Chiropteran Queens in the neighboring island. Three Chevaliers. Suggest neutralizing escapee before the situation escalates. We don't need Red Shield sticking their noses into this.**

FROM: C****** A********

TO: A*** P***, J***** T*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

 **The specimen is dead. Body has been retrieved from Mangrove Swamp.**

 **Critical alert over. All units stand down.**

FROM: A*** P***

TO: B***** T*****, J***** T*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

 **We've got bigger problems. Did you receive the memo about the dead guards?**

 **Subject 6 did not kill them.**

 **That was the work of something else completely.**

* * *

720 Yonashironohen

Uruma-shi, Okinawa-ken 904-2307

Japan

 _Thirsty_.

The gibbous moon is a low-floating specter between dark clouds. Wind skates through the palm trees, their leaves swaying beneath a glowing red sky.

A man stumbles through the cover of the woods. His bare feet squish through congealed mud. Bundled into a threadbare blanket, he may as well be part of the wilderness—glittery eyes and skittish movements, a wild animal coaxed out by the monsoon.

In the gloss of moonlight, his body is a stark delineation of skin and bones. Unsightly extrusions ridge the curve of his spine; his knees and elbows are knobbled as if with excess joints, rotating at strange angles. There is a jaundiced tinge all over his skin—except for the sunken pits of his eyes.

They glint the opposite color as the sky. Neon blue.

He'd stolen the blanket from a rubbish heap along the outskirts of the island. The weave reeked of smoke, crawling with fleas. But it kept him warm—and best of all, _hidden_ —as he'd stumbled through empty roads and overgrown forests. Not lost, but searching.

Scavenging.

 _Gods_ , he is so thirsty. At a derelict park, he'd found an outdoor water spigot. It was pitted with rust; when he'd turned it on, the water trickled out dark and tepid. He'd drunk it with cupped palms, delirious with relief. It tasted coppery, metallic. But its aftertaste only whetted his thirst.

He doesn't know how long he'd crouched there, gulping the sloshing water. His belly felt like it was full of lead. He'd thrown some up, taken huge shuddering breaths, and kept drinking.

Nothing slaked his thirst. It was like there was a sieve inside him: no matter how much water he was filled with, it kept trickling back out.

 _Thirsty_.

Near the roadside, thirty miles toward the closest town, he'd spotted an oversized feral cat. It was gnawing the carcass of a bird, blood-speckled feathers strewn across the glittering tarmac. Mesmerized, he'd crouched behind a clump of bushes to watch.

After his long imprisonment, the cat was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. Its sleek body glowed with heat. Under the dirty bristling of fur, he could practically taste its blood surging.

Instinctively, he'd lunged before the animal could leap away. Its claws had left hot streaks across his arms and face. But he'd barely noticed. Beneath the funk of its hairy coat, the cat's pulse throbbed out for him. He'd sunk in with his teeth before he could stop himself, skin splitting around his fangs like taffy, hot blood filling his mouth.

Something buried in the recesses of his mind cringed in irritation. This thing was _beneath_ him. A meager offering to one who had been weaned on the blood of—literal—babies and virgins.

But the rest of him kept drinking and drinking. The ache of his thirst subsided—but barely.

Now, he lurches through the woods, shivering in the soiled blanket. His mind—whetting itself to cruel sharpness as the hours pass—assures him the thirst will ease soon. Having escaped from the cave, from that long, long sleep, he will assert his rights in this strange new world.

Resume his proper place.

The blood he'd snatched up from those two men helps. It flows from his veins to the tip of his tongue, language and knowledge an infuriating puzzle before everything clicks into effortless certainty. His brain is animated with words and facts not his—yet serving him perfectly.

 _Car. Highway. Apartment. Electricity. Airplane. Cellphone._

All of it easy to grasp with his mind's fingertips. To turn over and pore at until the alien becomes the known.

But overlapping those thoughts, overriding them, is a wild compulsion that slowly seizes his muscles.

There is a town nearby. With humans.

Hot, live, delicious humans.

Fantasies drift through his head, a carousel of gore. A leaping jugular vein scented like strawberries, the blood tart and sweet on his tongue. The curve of a breast, plump as a dumpling, stamped in oozing red half-moons. The trickledown of veins on the inside of a wrist, leaping like fiery copper against his teeth and tongue. Each image mouthwateringly vivid, breathtakingly obscene.

 _So thirsty._

Head tipped back, he stares at the red curve of sky. It is like a river of blood. So easy to imagine lifting his arms, flying right up into its sweet shimmer—like plunging into a waterfall, only in reverse. He could slurp up the entire stretch of redness, without leaving a drop behind. It still wouldn't be enough to satisfy his thirst.

Where can he get more blood?

Dragging himself through the tangle of trees, his ears buzzing with mosquitoes, he wonders: _Is she still alive?_ He can't sense her presence anywhere. The familiar vibration at the base of his spine—to fight, to fuck, to feed—whenever she is close is mercifully absent.

Yet there is something else. A sort of echo of her power, her life-force. Impressions of a girl—dark hair and tanned skin and red, red eyes—pinwheel through his mind.

 _Who—?_

Beneath his bare foot, something crunches.

Blinking foggily, he stares down. It is a silvery wrapper, sticky with dark sweetness, ants crawling across it. It smells like honey, but sharper. A leftover human treat? (No— _chocolate_. In plastic foil.) Ahead, through a zigzagging gap between the trees, a light glows. It is not moonlight, or the winking of fireflies. The light is different, cold and harshly artificial.

Lightning in a jar?

(Electricity).

Stumbling toward it, he finds the trees sloping into a clearing. There—a small, low-ceilinged house. There is a rusty metallic shape parked in its pebbled milieu. (Car) An orange sphere and a jumble of assortments, beneath the awning of a makeshift shed. (Basketball, rollerblades and a pink bicycle.) The light pours in through a window. Inside, he sees a gleam like white ice. (Kitchen tiles.) A middle-aged woman chopping vegetables.

The entire scene is dizzyingly inviting. A human man, in his place, might stumble to door, bang with his fists and howl for help.

Not him.

The emotion expanding his heart isn't happiness. It is a dark, animalistic greed. At last, the nightmare of his isolation are over.

Soon, he will be in possession once more. Of himself. Of the place. Of the time.

 _Thirsty_.

Somewhere to the corner, a giggle. Craning his neck, he sees a girl. (A middle-schooler—the pleated skirt in navy blue plaid gives it away.) She smells of candy and roasted peanuts. A sparkly yellow contraption (cellphone) is pressed cozily between her ear and shoulder; she chatters happily with someone on the other end, her back turned to him.

The humid breeze carries the intoxicating throb of her heartbeat.

 _Thirsty_.

He cannot help himself. He doesn't want to. He creeps closer, and his body—dappled by the moonlight that falls from the stirring treetops overhead—begins to melt and lengthen, transforming with an excruciating crunch of bone and cartilage and skin. He can feel the teeth crowding inside his elongated jaw, the incisors piercing gums in bone-white needles.

The blood-thirst is incredible, suffusing each breath. It is as if the girl was placed there purely to satisfy him.

 _Thirstythirstythirstythirstythirstythirsty._

She never sees him, or realizes he is there—until he leaps and snatches her up from behind, fangs sinking into her neck. The blood is boiling-hot and sugar-sweet. He swallows without pause, her helpless cries rolling around in his skull, cold marbles of awareness that crunch to pieces beneath the weight of his maddening appetite. With every gulp, it is as if his disorientation unspools, faster and faster, leaving nothing but perfect instinct behind.

There is only this. Heat and heartbeat and hunger. The tastiest drink of his life.

It doesn't stop until he has drained the girl dry, her small body ticcing and twitching in death-throes. He drops her then, fangs stained in blood, nerves and muscles alight with it.

Behind him, a porch light snaps on. The door creaks open. There is a _scream_

Turning, he sees the middle-aged woman. Rigid with horror, both hands clapped to her mouth.

A blood-fruit dangling from a tree. Warm. Overripe. Ready to be bitten.

Roaring, he lunges at her with preternatural speed.

* * *

The sound of Haji's cello is a silken lilting in the otherworldly half-light of dawn. Or is it evening? Some days she can't tell the difference. The sun shimmers orange along the horizon while the moon floats in its western altar like a gloomy bride, veiled in fragile silver clouds.

Blinking groggily, Saya jerks her gaze from the stained-glass window. At her bedside, the green digital numbers on the clock read 7:16 AM. There is a waft of coffee drifting through the air. Her stomach, pining pig, oinks.

"...Up. I'm up."

Her body feels like a rusted automaton as she drags herself out of bed. A dull ache spreads through her thighs and her pelvis—the effect of stretching muscles unused to the work. Head throbbing inside the confines of her skull—the effect of either too little, or too much sleep.

Since her Awakening, her diurnal patterns are crazy. Always jerking awake at the tip of dawn, yet late evening finds her dozing heavily as a bat nestled in its cote. Her dreams—asleep or awake—are always so hideously vivid.

She'd clutched to the belief that the traumas would fade with time. Sheltered by the circle of _Family, Home, Haji_ , she'd hoped to dispel the darkness inside her. Certainly hoped it wouldn't follow her into the bed of a man she trusted so completely.

Hadn't she, in rare nights since her Awakening, sailed to the shores of sleep without a single ripple of distress? Woken, with a smile, from dreams where her universe was no different from the real one: just as blissfully soft and safe.

She'd dared to think, in those moments, that she was _free_.

Funny how that works. How one little panic-attack can cut those illusions to shreds. Remind her that the past is always hopelessly tangled around her, twisting and tugging in ways she can't even imagine.

Reminding her what she owes, and what she is still paying.

The red stone is wrapped in handkerchief again. She tucks it under her pillow with care. She doesn't carry it with her everywhere. But the impulse to touch it is omnipresent. It intensifies or fades, depending on if each day is better or worse than others.

Yesterday was—and then wasn't—a good day.

The music pouring through the air is like the blooming sunlight. Drifts of golden transience, both melancholy and breathtaking. Through the window, she can see Haji, settled on a bench at the patio. The cello, her old Stradivarius, is all glossy brown curves in the twilight.

The sight of it is nearly as beloved as Haji himself—a nostalgic fragment torn from another time.

His pale fingers dance numbly across the strings, the bow flashing as he coaxes out a bright rise and fall of notes. So crystalline and pure, an ecstatic wail she feels in every fiber of her body. Then dropping, darkening, the way dusk empurples the blue sky, the fall so natural, so deep, full of secrets barely told.

In the diffuse orange glow, Haji's face and hands are a pale gold, dark hair swept like wings across one scarred cheekbone. A familiar, nearly _necessary_ sight in the war—yet the wistful fascination welling up inside her is completely new. She still wears last night like a heavy perfume on her skin. Every muscle like taffy, a hot throbbing soreness between her thighs.

Hyperaware, heat-stirred, greedy.

 _Mine_.

Ownership is an awful word to apply to a person. Yet, watching Haji, her blood sparks with a possessiveness equal to what she feels for her sword. Another extension of her body, sharp and smooth and utterly dangerous.

Utterly imperative to her survival.

 _So why did you push him away last night?_

Shame suffuses her. God, everything had been so _perfect_ —until she was caught in a grip of terror so total it was paralyzing. It floods back now, the physical sensations of the vision, of her body besieged, out of control.

 _What was that?_

Poor Haji—what must he have thought? That it was his fault?

No wonder he is always so reticent about touching her. She is volatile as a cut power-cord, no matter how she tries to hide it.

Nothing since her Awakening is what she'd expected. Least of all herself.

The tears seep out fast. But it is a short squall, as involuntary as breathing. She is growing used to these disconnected fits of sadness. They don't slow down her day-to-day routine. Not in the war, and not now.

Careful not to jostle the drapes, she jerks away from the window. Retreats to the bathroom, where she runs the shower as _hot_ as she can stand.

Maybe the heat will melt her strangeness away. Re-situate her in the rightful time and place.

Wherever that is.

* * *

Downstairs, the villa has a breath-held hush, like a chapel of solitude.

Slowly, Saya drifts around the space, breathing it in. Wood polish and cleansers. Old spice. Leather. Rosin. Paper. On a davenport are crumpled linen shirts and jackets. The corner étagère is piled with books, and glasses smudged red with wine. Here and there are stubs of candles.

The place smells strongly of Haji; no one else has stayed here beyond a stretch of days. Yet everywhere, there are signs of visits from Diva's twins, from Kai. An age-stained poster hanging at a corner wall: Bart Simpson, squinting suspiciously out a window, under the caption _He's Becoming Isolated & Weird_. A mug, obviously a gift from the girls, reading in bold print: _Real Men Play Cello_. A set of exquisite knives crafted from white steel, with lacquered sheaths decorated in red dragons, and the name of the swordsmith, _Yoshikazu Ikeda_ , stamped in silver at the bottom.

Her favorite room, she's long-decided, is at the far-corner. She creeps there now, switching on the lamp. In the muted glow, lacquered instruments shine: an incredible string orchestra. Gleaming curves of cellos and double-basses. Delicate violins. To the left, a grand piano. A lyre, a lute, a harpsichord. Everything seems embroidered into the room, a mellisonant tapestry.

She likes looking at the instruments. They are leftovers of unique chapter in Haji's life. He seldom talks about it. But she's pried the details from Kai, and Diva's twins.

After her Long Sleep, it took nearly five years for Haji to heal until he was capable of clawing himself out of the charred rubble of the Met. Arriving to Okinawa too late, he had thrown himself into Chiropteran hunts with Red Shield—and into his music.

To hear Kai, he'd carried his cello everywhere, playing in the parks, at stations, at schoolyards, in the bathtub (Haji denies that last part).

He had also become a quietly hands-on presence in the twins' lives. Not out of duty—but because the war had taught him that distance protected nothing. It only cast you adrift at the edges of sanity.

From the twins' stories—and rare snapshots—Saya has learnt about their experiences under the care of two men, whose knowledge of children could've fit the head of a pin, with enough space leftover for a dancing troupe of angels.

Solitary was Haji's default mode; Kai was still brash and short-fused. But they were both ready to learn.

From Kai, the twins picked up everything about motorcycles, from catwalks to popping wheelies. From Haji, everything about edged weapons, from making _tanto_ blades whirl like fans to dodges and feints with swords.

Domestic chores were allocated in a similar fashion: Kai packed their lunches; Haji picked them up from school. For birthdays, Kai would bake cakes, throw parties, take the twins to carnivals; Haji would send postcards from whichever part of the globe Red Shield was exterminating Chiropterans. When the twins were in high school, they would go crying to Kai over heartbreaks, to be plied with hair-ruffles and gruff advice and _mochi_ ice cream; they would go to Haji, more rarely, if they needed someone's leg snapped.

In photographs with the twins, Saya watches the personalities of both men shine through. Kai speaks physical affection the way George did—as a fierce, fluent first-language. Never are those three caught together when Kai isn't grinning or tussling their hair or hugging them. Whereas Haji is always a step removed. Always dutifully holding their hands as children, or overlooking their antics as teens, but with the watchfulness of a sentry as much as a guardian.

A Chevalier protecting two Queens.

It explains why, when the twins first began accepting Chiropteran-hunting missions with Red Shield, Haji always accompanied them. It was during one of these missions, in the heart of Vienna, that Haji had been playing the cello in the open streets—a series of rapid-fire concertos culminating with Prokofiev's ascendant _Sinfonia Concertante_.

A renowned talent scout, slack-jawed with awe, had flagged him down afterward. Deaf to Haji protestations, he'd inked the _Undiscovered Prodigy_ to a contract on the spot.

Haji's rise was, to borrow a phrase from Kai, _Straight outta the fucking Twilight Zone_. He became a key player in the _New Viennese Philharmonic_ , arguably the most renowned orchestra in that era. He embarked on a cross-country tour across Europe. "A modern-day Luigi Boccherini," the Guardian raved. "He combines the smooth crispness of modern recordings with the rigor of a perfectionist or a madman: faultless tempo, intonation, bowing and phrasing!" gushed the New York Times.

Haji performed in Old World stages like Salzburg, where Mozart first played, and Köthen, where Bach once held the esteemed position of Capellmeister. He rode a wave of adulation into France, Finland, China, Australia, North and South America, playing in glittering halls with sumptuous acoustics, where waitlists stretched out for months and tickets were auctioned on the dark web.

Diva's twins have shown Saya a few Youtube videos of the surreal era. Haji seemed so pale and coolly-collected in the footlights' brilliant glare, a beautiful apparition descending on stage. His scars, which should've been jarring on such a fine fresh face, merely lent him the air of an old sculpture that had weathered the storms of loss.

And as he played—Beethoven, _Cello Sonata No. 3_ —flowing from allegro to scherzo, the magic materialized with such intensity, it seemed to ricochet in glittering force off the honeycombed ceilings and polished wooden floors.

Watching him, Saya felt as if she were witnessing a master in his element, at once exalted and terribly lonely at the pinnacle. Sometimes he responded to the applause with a jaded blue glance; other times, he seemed so in thrall to the melody he forgot everyone completely.

The aloofness, whether he intended it or not, was the perfect formula. Audiences worldwide were irresistibly drawn into his orbit. His mysterious _je ne sais quoi_ was fitting: the secrecy born to celestial bodies in eternal flux.

That was twelve years ago. At their height, the New Viennese Philharmonic had sampled both Renaissance and contemporary pieces (everything from _D'où Vient Cela Belle_ to _Bad Romance_ , according to the twins.) No other ensemble could perform the avant-garde with the same graceful panache as the classical. Their first album had sold over 21 million copies. Their devoted fanbase stretched all the way from Ontario to New Delhi.

Then, inevitably, tragedy struck. Two of their violinists were killed in a car crash; their conductor dropped dead mid-performance of a heart-attack; their volatile virtuoso of a pianist succumbed to a heroin overdose.

The ensemble disbanded, not suddenly, but piecemeal, an erosion by forces as unexpected as the ones that first brought them together.

Haji, for his part, melted to grateful semi-obscurity back in Okinawa. Nowadays he was the Rock Star professor at the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, holding seminars and workshops for aspiring musicians, sometimes collaborating with the University of Hawaii at Manoa, or flying on tours to lecture at the UCLA. More rarely he performed with old _Philharmonic_ bandmates and recent protégés at the likes of Tokyo's Suntory Hall, New York's Juilliard ChamberFest, or London's King's Place—but he shunned interviews and seldom posed for photographs.

His perplexing moment had bloomed and faded; he had no patience for cultivating a career out of leftover stardust and wilted laurels.

The whole affair was, to quote him, _As pleasant as being impaled through the ribcage_.

Saya smiles around a swell of wistfulness.

She is glad, in her absence, Haji had carved a niche for himself—with her family, in Life. She was so afraid, during her Long Sleeps, that he'd become likewise cocooned in isolation. It was a quality both she and Haji shared: melting away from the world, thriving in distance that sustained them not as a refuge, but as stasis.

Haji, always pragmatic, broke the habit first. But Saya can't bring herself to follow.

Not yet.

Settling at the grand piano, she lays tentative fingers across the keys. She feels like an interloper here—even though Haji says the place belongs her, as everything in his life does. Yet she still feels like she needs to ask for permission to pick a bottle from the wine cellar, or pluck a book from the shelves, or sample the cheesecake in the fridge. The villa, like the world outside, is too unusual and intimidating for her to just step into like an escalator drifting smoothly upward.

This is a different realm, created in a time she'd not been part of. In the golden glow of the sun, the space seems twice as unreal, as if the assemblage of instruments are whispering among themselves about this stranger, who will be gone in another few years.

She feels half-gone already, drifting like the dustmotes in the sunlight.

Red Shield's doctors had told her, after her Awakening, that she had posttraumatic stress disorder. Kai knows, and Haji has always known. But it is hard to divine relevance from a dry clinical term, or use it to regulate her sense of detachment.

Some days it is hard to trace dusk from dawn. Other days, happiness from despair.

"Saya?"

Haji is at the entrance. His shadow stretches across the floorboards, a cool stripe of darkness leading home to his body.

"Oh." She jerks to her feet. "G-Good morning."

She'd meant to say it cheerfully, confidently. Instead it is a whisper. Memories of last night skitter hotly through her, leaving her cheeks aglow. She hopes he won't notice. (He always notices).

Haji rounds the piano's edge. Doesn't touch, but looks into her face, his own palely composed. "Did you sleep all right?"

"I—Yes. I did."

 _You'd know, if you'd stayed with me instead of vanishing last night._

But that isn't fair. Last night, he'd left because she needed space. Because as her Chevalier, he respects her wishes. Always has. Why does she expect it to be any different when they are lovers?

(Why does she expect sex to impart hidden messages through the skin, any more than it can exorcise ghosts of the past?)

"Are you hurting?" he asks.

"Hm? No, not really." She flexes her arm, newly freed from the cast. "It healed up last night."

"That is not what I meant."

"Not what—? _Oh_."

Embarrassment wakes a flush along her skin. She nearly shakes her head, because _Hurting_ isn't the right word. Oversensitive, maybe. Off-kilter. But in the next beat, she nods. After last night's freak-out, maybe it's best not to try for a repeat performance too soon.

Haji's gaze skims over her gently, not missing a single nuance. "Shall I draw you a bath?"

"N-No. It's fine. I'll be all better by tomorrow."

"Have you had breakfast?"

"Not yet." She exhales a shaky laugh. "We forgot to get groceries yesterday. The fridge is practically empty."

Haji smiles. But his pupils, ringed in blue, are a contrariety. Still dwelling on last night's breakdown. "There is enough to fix an omelet."

"Y-You don't have to. Kai and the girls are dropping by for brunch, remember? They said they'd bring _champuru_ and _unagi_."

"A snack will not spoil your appetite."

 _Especially since it's the only aspect of you that is predictable,_ she hears—and flushes to the roots of her hair.

"Um...All right."

She follows him to the kitchen. It is narrow and monochrome, with an air of disuse, as if Haji has rarely set foot in there. A wide bay window, its shoji-style shutters slid back, offers a view of the seaside lying glittery blue beneath a multicolored morning sky. She watches him open the fridge, lay out ingredients. Eggs and sausages. Vegetables. Cheese.

It is always a shock, watching him cook. Not as well as Dad—or Kai, for that matter. But the novelty of it—like the newness of _them_ —tickles Saya in a way that is indescribably girlish. Layered over Haji is still her Chevalier, childhood friend and war-comrade. But also, lately, just _Haji_. With his untied swirl of hair and his soft buttondown shirt, pale hands expertly wielding a knife at the marble countertop, he is as perfect a knight as any damsel in domestic distress could want.

Except she isn't a damsel.

With the war, she no longer has the capacity to trust blindly, to laugh easily. Haji has always taken the catastrophes of her life—the conflicts, bitterness, ambiguities—in unflinching stride. But he is beginning to grasp—like Saya herself—that she's a walking catastrophe of the heart, too.

She can't love except in conflicted, bitter, ambiguous doses. The war hasn't shaped her for anything else.

He deserves so much better.

"H-Haji?"

"Hm?" He is chopping tomatoes and bellpeppers with freakish speed. "What's wrong? Should I leave the tomatoes?"

"Wha—? _No_. Tomatoes are fine. I just—" She blushes. "I just w-wanted to thank you. For everything you do for me. In the war, and... Now. I know how much trouble I've put you through."

"Trouble?" Bemused, he sets the knife down. "Saya. What's this about?"

"Nothing. I'm just letting you know how I feel."

Her stomach does a shameful twist at his concerned expression. Is it so hard for him to believe she'd say that?

Then again, should she be surprised?

They have been through the entire red spectrum of hell together. Yet there was always an unspoken distance between them, widening or closing by her choice, not his. So many conversations they should have—then, now—conversations she doesn't know how to begin. How to tell him how much he means to her, how in the past she'd have wanted nothing more than to be with him, if only things were different, if she weren't already so resigned to death?

And now here he is, and her happiness is an unstable thing, diamond-bright one moment, ashy as gravel the next. She can't bring herself to tell him how much she cares for him, when there is so little to show for it.

"Saya?" He touches her cheek. His fingers smell of spicy bellpepper. "What's wrong?"

She ducks her head. His expression, soft and clear-eyed, suffuses her with guilt. She can never truly be equal to that look. Never repay all the agony she's cost him.

"I'm just—I'm sorry, Haji," she says. "I've made you go through so much. It kills me to think about it. I'm not sure I can ever make up for it."

He flinches. "Saya. You have nothing to make up for. Why would you think—?"

 _Because I'm always wrapped up in myself when I should be wrapped around you._

 _Because every time you try to make me happy, it feels like you're speaking a language I no longer remember._

 _Because even after everything we've gone through, I can't reach the place I should be with you. If that place is possible at all..._

She bites back the words. They are already a dark smudge at the edges of her mind, fading into the sunlit present. Which is Haji, now kneeling before her, not like a man about to propose, but a knight swearing fealty to his sovereign. His forehead is so pale and bony above his eyelids. But it gives his eyes themselves that saturated depth.

In the glowing drifts of sunlight, his gaze conceals nothing.

Hesitantly, he asks, "What happened last night? Did I do something to—?"

" _No_." Leaning forward, she puts a hand on his hair. He'd used to hate that as a child, maybe a cultural taboo, buried like knots of barbwire in his spine alongside memories of the family he'd been wrenched away from. But now he presses into her palm, the dark hair sleek as a cat's beneath her caress. "Last night was _perfect_. I was just—"

 _Just what? My usual unhinged self_?

It will only upset him if she says it in those terms; he is always trying so desperately to keep her happy and whole.

"It was a... a flashback. Or something. It hit me and I had a... big overreaction."

Haji doesn't answer. His half-frown signals, not doubt, but contemplation. "Did I do something to set it off?"

" _No_." Big shake of the head. It's not a lie. It wasn't him but the shocky blankness of her own orgasm. The way it spread her mind and body open to ugly doses of madness. "I barely remember what caused it. It just—froze me up."

"I see."

It's evident he isn't buying it. But he isn't drawing away either. Instead, he considers her for a long moment.

Then, "Are you going to tell me about that rock under your pillow?"

Saya freezes. "Rock?"

"The one you carry around wrapped in a handkerchief. Is there a reason for—?"

Her hand drops as if singed. Suddenly she is caught in an upswing of buzzing nerves.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Saya—"

" _I said no_."

Jerkily, she sweeps past him. Opens the fridge door—almost yanking it off—to stare inside. She isn't looking for anything. She just wants the cool air to bathe her hot face. Behind her, Haji rises silently, watching her with those eyes that always see too much.

"Forgive me. We needn't discuss it if—"

" _Then don't_."

Her teeth grate against sharper words. Anger is so fast to fill her up lately, and it is hard to leave ugly things unsaid.

The kitchen is very quiet. Her ultrasensitive hearing catches the low hum of the thermostat, the _tok-tok-tok_ of the overhead clock. She hears Haji's heartbeat. Her own. But the sounds only magnify the silence. She wants to cover hear ears and scream.

Instead she shuts the fridge. "I want cereal. Is there cereal?"

Haji seems to understand.

"There is oatmeal in the cabinet. Let me fix it for you."

"I-I'll do it myself."

She stands at the stove with a wooden spoon. The cereal simmers, smoke rising. At her elbow, Haji brews coffee, cracks a pair of eggs against the edge of a bowl, then gets out the skillet.

Despite the cheerful kitcheny sounds, the atmosphere between them is fraught. Guilt rises like bile in the back of Saya's throat. She is already regretting snapping at him, although Haji seems none the worse for it. Then again, he's always been adept at concealment, when it suits him.

He'd concealed his true feelings for her for almost a century.

Quietly, he pours the vegetables and egg mixture into the sizzling frying-pan, sending up a whirl of steam. When it is cooked, he slides it, fluffy and wrap-style, in her plate with crisp strips of bacon, verdant curls of bellpepper and tomatoes with toasty tan splotches.

Everything looks ... surprisingly good. A reminder that he's spent these past decades in the company of humans, learning their tastes and comforts.

Not for himself. For _her_.

To do right for her, and _be_ right for her, after her Awakening.

Except he already is. Always has been, in ways she didn't realize she needed. Not until he was gone.

The omelet gives off a mouthwatering aroma. But she doesn't take her place at the table. Instead she goes to him, laying her hot forehead against his cool shirt-back, spanning her arms around him. A wordless apology, wanting so badly to fix things, fix herself.

Be the girl he first fell in love with, not the burnt-out warrior locked in her own strange mind, where every noise is a threat and violence still comes more naturally than kisses.

Except she isn't sure where to begin.

"Haji..."

She doesn't get to finish. He turns, encompassing her in an embrace that is like the cool shade of a willow tree on a hot day.

The fear abandons her at once; she relaxes on a shuddery exhale. _God_ , she should've done this from the start. Folded herself into his arms, without the catastrophe of speech. Let the secret dialogue sustained inside their bodies speak the truth.

Why doesn't she hug him more often? Every day, every hour? Why leave it as a last resort, for when she's falling to pieces?

Head resting against Haji's chest, she whispers, "I'm making a mess of everything, aren't I?"

"Yes." His bluntness is layered in affection, taking the sting out of his words. "I would have it no other way. You needn't do or say things that you do not feel, because you think they will make me happy, Saya. My happiness is with _you_. This—your being here, mess or no mess. I will gladly take whatever you give."

His words simmer through her. Flowering with sweetness, yet sharpening her sere-toothed guilt.

Swallowing, she tries for a saucy smile. "Whatever I give, hm?"

He kisses her. Just like that, there is no reason to say anything else. Just a kiss whose heat rises from the balls of her feet to her hairline, so her fears melt into want, and want into need. Her spine melts too, beneath his cool palm—a softening spill of muscle and bone, until she is flowing against him with a swooning sigh worthy of _Gone with the Wind_.

 _Mine_. It pounds in time with her pulse: irresistible, unceasing. _Mine. Mine._

In the pot, the cereal bubbles in thick plops over the edge. The air is hazed with smoke.

"Oh no!"

Hastily, she disengages from Haji to turn down the heat. Somewhere in the house, a beep chimes off. Not the smoke alarm, but the audio signal at the entrance. There is the tread of familiar footsteps—more than one.

Deep in the villa, Kai's gruff voice calls out, "Saya? Haji? You guys here? I think something's burning."

Exhaling, Haji doesn't answer. He gazes at her for a long moment. A look of pure hunger that gets inside her, makes her feel achingly alive for the space of a heartbeat. Then he takes another deep breath and tears his gaze away. She watches that layer of polite permafrost descend, burying all the dark things—good and bad—where no-one can see.

It's a skill they've both perfected in the war. Right now, it feels more like a wicked game. A secret just between them.

"There you are." Kai pokes his head in, tailed by Diva's chattering daughters, and their Chevaliers, each carrying fragrant bags of food. "Come and get it! We've even got _habushu_ from that old liquor store."

"Snake wine?" Haji lifts a dubious eyebrow. "Isn't it too early in the day for—"

Saya is already ogling the bags, emotional epiphany crowded out by gluttony. "Oh! Is there any _kōrēgusu_ sauce? I can pour it on my omelet...!"

* * *

 _Saya still prefers snacks to romance..._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Ch 6 should officially get the ball rollin' and introduce the key players in the fic! Expect family fun and some fluff between Haji and Saya in between the requisite angst!_

 _Comments and critiques are always welcome!_


	6. Snake Wine

_Chapter the sixth! With the intro of Diva's daughters, their Chevaliers, and some Haji-perspective musings on Saya and their future. Everything is fluffy and fun and full of food - which in the Blood+ verse means disaster will soon strike!_

 _Nonetheless, I hope y'all enjoy! Thank you so much for all the sweet comments and msgs! They make me beam and get me buzzed so I can't wait to start the next chapter!_

 _Reviews and critiques are forever welcome!_

* * *

Saya laughs.

It's a strange sensation, stirring in her belly like a cry, only less familiar. Slowly, she reinhabits her body, with that heartsick happiness she's growing accustomed to lately, the cracking ache and golden glow of a _kintsugi_ vase.

But then, laughter always comes easily when she's with her family.

Brunch is over. The plates have been cleaned of every last smudge of sauce, stray rice grain, and edible crumb. Saya is tucking into the technicolor dessert of fruit tarts and mango ice cream, and Kai is pouring rice wine out of a glass jar with a couple of dark vipers floating around in it, to guffaws from her and the twins. Conversation flows in swift Japanese: her preferred _lingua franca_ in this era.

Since her Awakening, they do this every weekend, impromptu get-togethers that have morphed into a bittersweet ritual.

It takes Saya back to the early days of her amnesia. Living as a schoolgirl in Omoro, Kai and Riku and Dad's laughter brightening a room suffused with the delicious aroma of cooking, so there is an overlap of then and now, a strange sense of occupying two different worlds, two different selves.

Except now, Kai is a grown man in his late forties—lean and sinewy and nearly as tall as Haji. Hair curling past his collar, graying at the temples, but still with hints of gingery-red. Face handsomely angular and creased, covered in stubble. But still the same smile, a sunbeam or a sawbuck rifle in its blinding impact.

All these decades, he's remained stubbornly single, although she's heard from the twins that there were a handful of women, all darkhaired beauties with an air of gloom-and-doom, and none of whom lasted beyond a few years. She's also heard other rumors, about a tempestuous off-and-on relationship with Mao Jahana, now the _oyabun_ of the Jahana clan—ending in the fireworks of betrayal when Mao chose (instead? at last?) to run off with Akihiro Okamura.

Maybe, she thinks, the war clobbered Kai too, in ways not unlike hers, making it difficult to sustain lasting connections with anyone.

Considering alternative reasons— _could-haves_ and _might-haves_ —is futile now.

"Don't know what you're belly-aching about," Kai huffs, taking a defiant mouthful from his glass. " _Habushu's_ practically Okinawa's official daytime drink."

"They banned it five years ago. Something about the _habu_ snake being endangered." Sayuri—the blue-eyed twin, known to family as simply Yuri—spoons ice cream into her perfect red mouth. Always impeccably dressed in high-buttoned blouses and pleated skirts straight out of _ViVi Magazine_ , her long dark hair is pinned back in a sleek chignon, her voice a lilt of perfect vowels and sumptuous consonants no matter what language she speaks.

Everything about her radiates ice-cool poise and precision—but with a sense that it can dissolve any minute into twinkling delight. In her laughter, Saya sees echoes of Riku, a warmth that turns silver into gold.

Her Chevalier-of-eight-years, Sachi, is cut from the same cloth. The child of an Okinawan club hostess and French career officer, he trained as a sniper with the Fusiliers Marins, before joining Red Shield after a Chiropteran bloodbath in Mayotte. Pale and leanly-muscular, he has darkish hair bleached silvery-white at the tips, and languid hazel eyes under long lashes. Pretty, almost, but with an edge as cool and cutting as crystal.

Around Yuri, though, he is playful, almost puppyish. Lolling against the cushions beside her with easy languor, he riffles the strings of his guitar. As he segues into the first strains of _Black Magic Woman_ , Saya is reminded of Haji in their Zoo days—a resemblance both telling and amusingly Freudian. It's evident which "father" Yuri imprinted on most strongly in her childhood.

"Their endangered status won't stop wine sales," Sachi says. "The American military enjoy habushu very much. Good, umm, medicinal properties."

"Medicinal properties?" asks Saya.

"It's supposedly an aphrodisiac." The brown-eyed twin, Sayumi (just _Yumi_ , thanks) gleefully skates the last slice of _goya_ around on her plate with chopsticks.

The volatile red Oni to her sister's sedate blue, she is all burning-bright attractions: curly dark hair like smoke and a smile like a bonfire. Her voice is Diva's exactly, but husky-edged—an oboe d'amore rather than a haunting windchime. Always dressed in ripped jeans and tank-tops that accentuate an appealing athletic body, there is something of Kai about her too: feisty quips and fighting chops.

But the childlike simplicity of her affections, her warm helpful nature, are all Riku.

Next to her Chevalier, she looks _tiny_ , her hand swallowed in his big paw. Then again, V (short for Vicente) dwarfs nearly everyone in the room. A former all-Marine boxing champion, he'd joined Red Shield five years ago, the sole survivor of a gruesome Chiropteran attack that wiped out his entire team in Togo—only to be permanently K.O'ed himself after meeting Yumi, or so he jokes.

Physically, he is a creature of pure force: 200 pounds of fast-twitch muscle packed into a hulking six-foot-four frame. Tribal tattoos crisscross the dark brawn of his arms. His hair is a spiky black shock, sideburns converging into a sharp goatee. Yet his manner is boyish, breezy, a just-one-of-the-guys air that Yumi says is camouflage for the big dumb mushball inside.

"Aphrodisiac?" Clinking glasses with Kai's, V knocks his drink back with gusto. "Like what? A love potion?"

"Viagra, more like," Sachi says dryly. "The habu mate for nearly twenty-six hours. Effects on drinkers are supposedly similar."

"You're shitting me, right?" V sounds both unnerved and hopeful.

"Well. A badly-preserved habu could instead cause, umm, necrosis and internal bleeding."

"Huh," V grunts, then shrugs. "Worth the risk." He takes another shot.

"Try it with oysters and raw eggs. Your stamina will hit the roof."

" _Hey_!" Mock-scowling, Yumi pokes a chopstick at her sister's Chevalier. "Quit giving him ideas, Sachi."

"What?" Sachi exchanges looks with Yuri, their smiles near-identical. Butter-wouldn't-melt with a sprinkle of sugar. "I am doing you a favor."

"Your _favors_ will have me walking like John Wayne on crutches straight into next week."

Groaning, Kai pinches the bridge of his nose. "Jesus! I'm not drunk enough to listen to this shit!"

"Oh c'mon, Kai! We're all adults here!"

"That's _Dad_ to you, Sayumi."

"Oh _yeah_..."

" _Yeah_. So keep it PG. Stop embarrassing your auntie."

"Puh- _leeeeeze_." Yumi winks at Saya. "She's older than all of us combined. If anything, she could teach _us_ how little Chevalier and Chevalière are made."

"Er..." Mouth full of tarts, Saya tries to keep up with the banter.

"Chevalière?" Intrigued, V scratches his stubbled cheek, a sandpaper rasp. "Is that a real thing? Girl Chevaliers?"

Yuri shrugs, licking the ice cream off her spoon. "I don't see why not? Once turned, they'd have the same powers. Plus? They'd be extra-useful for espionage since they're routinely underestimated."

"Point." V wags a knowing eyebrow. "Kinda useless for spawning rugrats with their Queen's sis, though."

Saya expects a cool repartee. Instead Yuri colors up and drops her spoon. Which is odd.

Quietly, Sachi fetches the fallen utensil, but not before shooting V a look. No particular heat, but still a warning.

Which is odder.

He circles Yuri's stylish slenderness in his arms, and she lets herself curl against him with a dreamy half-smile. They remind Saya of two co-conspirators, congratulating themselves over an armful of secret treasure. Across the table, V squeezes Yumi's hand in his large one, the two of them sharing a brief glance of their own: a wistful understanding.

Frowning, Saya glances from one pair to the other. She wants to ask if anything is wrong.

Then Kai irritably calls out: "Hey, Haji! Wouldja sit your ass down? I already told you we'd help clean up later!"

Ruefully, Saya glances at the kitchen. Her Chevalier has finished washing and stacking the serving trays, and is now speculatively eyeing the clutter of their greasy plates at the table.

He always does this toward the tail-end of the meal. It is not out of innate fastidiousness. Rather, he respectfully withdraws, so she is free to be absorbed within her family, absorbed within their warmth and laughter.

Even now, he remains a sentinel. Poised at the edges of the bright Miyagusuku sphere, refusing to come closer than necessary.

Sweet, foolish man. He's reconciled her to life as surely as her family has. If there's anywhere he belongs, it's at her side.

"Haji." She reaches a hand, open fingers a flowering invitation. "Help me finish the ice cream."

A transparent ploy. Haji doesn't eat ice cream. But it isn't the words that matter. It's the imperative notes of her voice, a _do, re, mi, fa_ of déjà vu, because it's the same way she'd once say, _Give me my sword_ , or _Fetch me a pink rose_ , or _Play the cello for me_.

Except now her sole objective is to have him near.

If Haji is startled, he doesn't let on. Drying his hands, he drops gracefully down beside her. She doesn't dare spoonfeed him the ice-cream. Half-convinced her family already know what she did with him last night; her body a fireball of stymied want, lit up achingly hot and luminous.

Then Haji accepts the bowl from her, and tastes a scoop. His eyes hold a softer glow than usual—and against her will, Saya blushes.

"H-How is it?"

He offers that rare half-smile. For a second she has a giddy sense of being stuck in a vintage 1950s postcard: the schoolgirl making doe-eyes at her dreamy beau over a sundae.

Kai smirks over the rim of his glass. "Since when do you enjoy dessert, Haji?"

" _He do~es if it's Saya's left~overs_ ," Yumi singsongs to the tune of _A Whole New World_. Yuri takes it up as a duet. " _Or any~thing of Saya's, let's be re~al_."

Haji's spoon clinks pointedly against the bowl. "Is it out of the question that you two finish your meal without talking?"

"Out of the question." Sayumi and Sayuri's smiles for him are childishly smug. It is hard for Saya to watch and not think how he must've been when they were children—quietly firm and fond.

"What if you were bribed?" Haji asks.

"Wiiiiiiith?"

Wordlessly, Haji passes the ice cream bowl over. The twins dig in with triumph.

Watching them, V shakes his head ruefully. "You oughtta let the poor guy eat. He's practically skin and bones."

" _Everyone's_ skin and bones compared to you, Vicente," Kai says, between mouthfuls of his drink. "What the hell did they feed you in the States? Live buffaloes?"

Preening, V flexes a bicep. "Gatorade, avocados and beef burritos."

"And every other calorie-dense meat product on earth," Sachi says, idly strumming his guitar.

"Man, Sachi, you _are_ a carb-counting hipster!" Yumi gasps, as if confirming an awful rumor.

Sachi lifts a shoulder, guilty as charged, and transitions the chords into _Bad Moon Rising_.

The music stirs up fond memories in Saya. That was one of Dad's favorite songs, and she and Kai exchange rueful glances of shared recognition. Warm and well-fed, with Haji's cool shape beside her and the mellow rise and fall of her family's conversation lapping at her ears, she is free to drift, unmoored to anything but the moment. Because this moment, and others like it, strung together like pearls on a chain, make the ugliness of the past almost worth the magical present.

Lazily, she lays her cheek against Haji's arm. Her eyes, half-closed, fall on the jar of _habushu_.

In the amber liquid, the snake is poised with jaws wide open, as if mid-attack. Its skin is an iridescent black, overlaid with a pale pattern of scaling. Deadly even in death—yet so beautiful.

Staring at it, a subspecies of emotion—not fear, but its chilling echo—pinwheels across her spine. She thinks of that strange vision last night. The glitter of blue eyes. The scaly body. The whisper right in her ear, identical in pitch to the Diva-voice she'd heard in her dreams.

 _Saya..._

"Saya?"

Blinking, she glances at Haji, then at her hands. She has twisted the silver spoon into a bow.

" _Oh_!"

The knotted spoon clatters away. Haji picks it up and carefully unbends it, concern in the blue orbits of his eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Y-Yeah. Just spaced out for a bit."

Her cheeks flame with the knowledge that everyone at the table is staring at her. Kai's look is understanding and a little sad, Yuri's kind, Sachi's polite and V's curious. Under the table, Yumi squeezes her knee. Memories skitter; the last time anyone touched her knee under the table, it was a Red Shield agent in 1960s London, signaling the approach of a Chiropteran.

Blinking, she glances at Yumi, then manages a smile when she realizes the gesture is pure comfort.

"I'm fine," she murmurs, to nobody in particular. "I just... ate a lot."

"Postprandial somnolence," Yuri nods sagely.

"Postpar-what now?" Yumi stretches with an audible crick of the spine, rubbing her belly mock-tenderly. "You mean the Eatus Fetus?"

"She means _gochisousama_." Kai downs the last of his drink like a shot, then rises matter-of-factly to his feet. "C'mon. Let's help Haji clear this up..."

In the eddying movements that follow, Saya hangs back until she is once more in command of herself. With slow breaths, dregs of the vision fade.

Quietly, she lets herself observe how her family move around each other in the narrow kitchen, with the same cohesive ease as in a battlefield.

Kai and the three Chevaliers, clearing the table, are engaged in serious debate about the health benefits of _wasabi_ (well, Haji is just listening). Yet even as they converge on the table, each man keeps a circumference of distance, the body-language of soldiers always readied to draw weapons, to throw blades or evade gunfire.

Conversely, Yumi and Yuri harmonize like magnets of opposite polarities, washing and drying the dishes together between giggles in that special monosyllabic language of theirs. The two are almost a single organism, growing like two lovely blooms from an invisible taproot.

Nothing like Saya and Diva at all.

Or, maybe, a glimpse of what they might've been... if life had been kinder.

This hits Saya in a raw spot; she swallows.

Diva is gone. Yet she is always there, in the blue sparkle of Yuri's eyes, in the crystalline fall of Yumi's laughter, in the living, breathing, eating, dancing, fighting legacy these girls embody. Watching them each moment suffuses Saya with grief, but it is a clean and soothing ache, like a cauterized wound.

The scars will never fade, but you have to learn to live with them.

Saya is still trying.

The twins notice her stare, and offer curious smiles.

Blinking, Saya tries a wobbly smile of her own. She has all the time in the world: to remember, to rage, to regret. But she also has this warm glowing evening, to forget.

It is more than she deserves.

* * *

Night falls in a chill swoop, closing a day of unpacking, music, snake-wine and snacks.

Surf booms at the moon-glossed shore. The world is rich with nocturnal music: mosquitoes humming against the porch screen, moths battering their furry bodies against the lightbulbs, songs of cicadas rising and trebling among the rustling palm-trees.

The gentle gradation of sand leads to the beachhead two hundred yards down. There, Saya, the twins and their Chevaliers are racing across the shoreline.

Haji stays at the edge of the porch, keeping watch.

The air temperature has dropped at least fifteen degrees, but he barely feels the chill. Extremes of cold and heat have never bothered him.

In the war, Saya and he had traversed across the icy wastelands of Oymyakon, braving frostbite and frozen corneas. They'd spent nights in filthy rooms in Caracas where the rusted ceiling fans only stirred the humidity and the mattresses stank of piss. Fought in battlefields in New York swimming knee-deep in entrails, comrades torn to carcasses of revolting variations, the stench so overpowering you recalled nothing of your life before that point: as if you were inhaling and exhaling pure horror.

After the Bordeaux Sunday, it was as if they'd fallen off the slope the civilization, deep into its rotten underbelly. They'd seen the world not just for its ugliness, but for the dirty cogs that kept it spinning.

The place where nightmares bred.

Saya had survived in the depths of those nightmares. Lived and breathed in the eye of madness.

But not without paying the price.

Each year, Haji had watched the war pare her down to something sharper, colder, crueler. More unrecognizable from who she truly wanted to be. Each year, he had sensed the widening split between the fighter and the girl, the avenger and the martyr, until the heaviness of difference nearly broke her to pieces.

Hard as he'd tried to coax her away from the edge of despair, he could never heal the parts of her dispersed to heartbreak.

It was the Miyagusuku family who succeeded, with a warmth that was composed as much of their determination to protect their own as to care for them with pure love. They'd changed Saya more in a handful of years than Haji had in decades of silent service.

More than that, they'd lent _him_ the courage to give voice to his true feelings.

Impossible to imagine his confession would hold the impact needed, without Kai's well-meaning blow to break it loose. Or to be the sea-change that would rock Saya into reconsidering her death-wish.

Impossible, too, to summon resentment, in the face of that. To do so would mean resenting her survival as well.

Saya _deserves_ to live. To be loved and happy, more than anyone alive.

He watches as she splashes across the shoreline, salt spray glittering in her hair. Her smile is like moonlight, her laughter carrying the same silvery luster.

The sight locks a thrilling heat in his chest. God, she is so radiantly beautiful like this. Exuding joy, alight with it, a supernova melting across the surface of the night. And as _fast_ as ever—he watches her blitz down the dunes in a way that nearly breaks the laws of physics.

Sayumi and Sayuri, both seasoned fighters on the battlefield, can barely keep up.

How could they? Saya on a tear is impossible to outrun.

Haji has hoped—as he's hoped often in the past, but never as intensely as now—that Saya might rediscover happiness. Not the exact shape and texture of happiness as at the Zoo, or during her amnesia, but something different, bittersweet but worthwhile.

Watching her dance across the water, delightfully giddy and girlish, it's easy to imagine she's found it. Easy to imagine a different Saya, who is recovering smoothly. Who doesn't stare trancelike into space for hours, or jerk awake to nightmares, or listen for strange sounds in the dark, or subsist on inverted circadian rhythms, or fear her own orgasms, or...

Or carry a shard of Diva's crystallized remains in her pocket.

The real Saya does all these things. Even in her lightest moments, there is something shadowy in her outline.

Haji has spent years on the frontline among fighters. He recognizes the signs of disorientation and repression. Recognizes, too, that the transition from violence to peace is never easy.

He has known men back from war who cannot sleep without a weapon beneath their pillow. It is hard for the body to abandon the reflexes that were once essential for its survival. Harder still for the mind not to align the past with the present, or to envision a future not patterned on early ruin.

 _The war is over, but not._

 _It will take time for her to heal._

So be it. Saya can take all the time she needs. All he asks in return is the privilege to be _near_ her. To soak up her laughter, her conversations, her silences, even her tears—as long as she keeps on living for tomorrow.

Catching his gaze now, Saya smiles, her head silhouetted against the gibbous moon. In the translucent light, all her shape is clear through her fluttery lilac dress.

Despite himself, Haji feels his gaze go half-lidded, lingering.

Flustered, Saya spins away. Her face blooms to a gorgeous pink, hands reflexively smoothing down her dress

Caught out, Haji ducks his head—abashment, apology. Hunger, so hot, ceaseless, rises to the surface without warning these days. He isn't sure if he's lost his talent for concealment, or if he is simply growing bolder, more careless.

 _You are allowed,_ he thinks savagely, _to have sexual thoughts about the woman you love._

In fact, isn't it more disrespectful to install her on a pedestal—to treat her as a one-dimensional saint—than to acknowledge her as a woman? If he cannot accept the intensity of his desires, in the privacy of his own mind, does he have any business acting out even their echoes in reality?

Yet their very intensity is frightening.

Control is bred into Haji's bones. His life is navigated by neither bloodlust, nor libido. During Saya's Long Sleeps, duty was a razor-line cutting through all distractions. Throughout his travels, he'd kept entirely to himself, holding his body as war-fortresses hold their armories. Even his years with the New Viennese Philharmonic— _what utter insanity that was!_ —he'd been caught up in endless concerts, photoshoots, rehearsals and interviews, the fanbase of shrieking women fading to a miasmic blur in the background.

Band-mates had accepted the aloofness as one of his many idiosyncrasies. Most knew that if you wanted to get along with Haji, you gave him sheet-music, and left him to play cello. Alone. If a woman ever expressed interest in him, he wielded that aloofness as a shield. Gave the impression that there was someone—departed? distanced?—whom he could not betray.

The fact that it made him seem twice as attractive was an unhappy side-effect.

Except Saya is neither departed nor distanced. She is _right here_ —and his gratitude mounts by the hour. After decades of aching to be with her, having her in his arms is both thrilling and frightening.

And last night, making love to her...

 _God_.

It was like dying of wish-fulfillment, and its complete negation. No peace, no promise of satiety. Endless craving, seeping inside out.

 _Be patient,_ Haji reminds himself. And, the golden word: _Sublimate_.

Saya's bright surface belies the damage her psyche has sustained. She needs time to settle into herself, her life. After decades of denying any aspect of herself not tied to duty, it is impossible for her to wear her skin for a few months and intuitively know how everything works. Especially when she's been so troubled since her Awakening: perpetually high-strung, her gaze gone inward, as if inventorying her bloodstream for landmines, their triggers set off by the slightest word or action.

Last night's meltdown was reminder enough.

 _It is my fault._

 _I should not have pushed her before she was ready._

It is why Haji is determined—now, more than ever—to keep the physicality at half-speed. Not burdening her with the expectations of an adult man, but bolstering her through the symbolic gestures of a friend as much as a Chevalier.

Comfort, conversation, silence.

It is enough, until Saya begins showing more compelling signs of recovery. The _How_ and _When_ aren't for him to speculate. The heart heals at its own pace, and mustn't be rushed.

 _And if, once healed, she resolves your presence is no longer necessary...?_

Well. That is not for him to speculate, either.

"So who's winning the race?"

Kai steps onto the porch. The moonlight strikes cold sparks off the two cut-crystal glasses in his hands—one blood, one _habushu_. As a single parent and a vigilant war veteran, he seldom imbibes more than finger's worth of alcohol.

But tonight, off-duty in every sense, a drink seems natural. Celebratory, even.

On his part, Haji has always been wary of consuming blood before company. But after safeguarding two Chiropteran Queens, slowly seguing them into their nature while ensuring they did not experience the same shame and conflict as Saya, blood-drinking was the least of what he'd accepted as part and parcel of his own life.

He takes his glass with a nod. Wing riffles his long hair: he sweeps it back with his free hand. With Kai, as with the twins, there is no need for the layer of shadow to conceal the scars across his face. None of them have ever stared, not even when Haji first returned from the Met disaster, half his body crisscrossed in ugly cicatrices.

It was how Haji knew he'd been welcomed into the family, without fuss or formality, as much for himself as for being Saya's Chevalier.

"Saya won the first six rounds," he says. "Sayumi demanded a rematch, but lost. Now they are simply chasing Saya around."

"Juveniles," Kai snorts.

He settles on the porch steps, watching the lively quintet with an expression Haji recognizes. Half-wistful, half-affectionate.

It reminds him of the early days: Sayumi and Sayuri as children, playing in the park under their guardian's watchful eye. Even then, the twins were tiny dynamos of mischief. Always crawling into places they shouldn't be, knocking over things they shouldn't touch, feet racing so quickly across the house it's a wonder the friction didn't burn the floorboards.

Over the years, Haji has assumed reluctant co-wardship over them with Kai—only for it to blossom quietly into fondness. He has a dry, good-humored relationship with the flame-tempered Sayumi that would come across as low-level vitriol to a stranger; the girl reminds him so strongly of Saya in her youth that the nostalgia is irrepressible. He is temperate-verging-on-tender with Sayuri, the classic hot-house flower, so particular in her habits and dainty in her manners, and so different from the young women of today—a girl-Riku with Diva's eyes.

In their adolescent years, when the two girls were volatile cocktails of hormones and supernatural powers, needing endless reserves of patience, he was one of the few people who could handle them. (If there was any area Haji excelled at beyond cello or combat, it was caring for eternally sixteen-year-old girls.)

But Kai was the _real_ parent—solid and rootbound as the ground beneath the girls' feet. Always their favorite; the hero-dad and dynamic playmate rolled into one. Always able to cajole them out of their sulks, comfort them when they were distressed, or show them hand-to-hand skills and melon-carving with the same smiling ease as he taught them how to speak the language of laughter.

The girls were Chiropteran Queens by birth. They shared the surname _Otonashi_ on the dotted line. But they were Miyagusukus at their core. The bloodline ran thick, and the family held close to its own.

It was why Haji never lived at Omoro, despite the twins' wheedling and Kai's gruff invites. Instead, he'd chosen the villa by the beach. It was within reasonable distance of Omoro. But its isolated location also held an intense appeal to his own private nature.

Over the years, it became a de facto safe-house. Somewhere he could retreat to, when the paparazzi got on his nerves, when the tours were too hectic, when the world felt too outsized, and his memories of Saya too overwhelming.

Yet those same memories kept him from melting into complete solitude. He's done his best to absorb the island rhythms: learning how to string lobster traps, to recognize when a tropical storm would roll in with the accuracy of a Doppler map, how to gather the proper ingredients for Tacorice, the differences between _Sakishima_ and _Hime_ vipers. Turning down attractive tenure-track positions in private institutes across the globe, he'd even gravitated to a more modest position here at the University of Prefectural Arts. _A political statement_ , Kai says: boosting their prestige and offering publicity to what is still Japan's most neglected prefecture.

He teaches full-time, not for the salary he doesn't need but for the pleasure of schooling fresh talent, imparting skills that light up young minds. He's even picked up the native dialect, to the point where he can switch between _Hyojungo_ and _Uchinaguchi_ with equal swiftness.

The island is abundant with mysteries and beauties. The people in his small social sphere are unfailingly polite, tolerating his countless eccentricities. But it isn't home.

No place is home, except at Saya's side.

"How is she doing?" Kai asks now.

He means Saya, of course. Since her Awakening—and especially since Saya's accident—he's been tracing her progress with nearly the same intensity as Haji. Always looking at her with bright dots of concern in his eyes, as if she might crumble to pieces.

Haji hesitates. Over the years, he and Kai have established a matter-of-fact camaraderie. It is not the ease of blood-brothers, as they both had once shared with Riku—but close. Still, there remains an orbit of space around their personal lives: a territory zoned against inquiry.

For Haji, Saya is indelible to that territory.

But Kai is her family. Haji owes him the truth, even with the finer points shaved off.

"It is a process."

Kai squints dubiously. "Meaning what, exactly?"

"Some days are harder for her than others. Last night, she seemed fine ... then all at once she wasn't. That was a bad day." He watches Saya dance across the glittering shoreline. Her body seems to glitter too: sand, saltwater, sweetness. Against his will, he softens. "Today, she ate everything put before her. Laughed. Shared her ice-cream. Is playing with her nieces. It is a good day."

Kai nods, but doesn't answer. For a moment, both men are quiet, for different reasons.

Then, "It can only get better. Right? She'll be okay."

"Yes." That much Haji is sure of. "Saya can overcome anything. As long as she has her family."

"That includes you, too."

Haji pauses.

Kai is unfailingly kind. But he can afford to be. The points of his life are connected, always, to happiness. Each time, he gets back tenfold what he gives. The twins adore him as a father in all but fact. And he can still restore the glow to Saya's eyes, where Haji's own efforts always feel like sad miscalculations destined for failure.

"I am here to serve Saya. But ..." Haji's voice drops to its most toneless. "Her happiness may be out of my hands."

"Huh?" Frowning, Kai sets his glass down. "What the hell's that mean?"

Already, Haji regrets starting this. But he also feels insufficient to _keep_ Saya. In the war, he'd perfected a talent for absorbing her woes. Sustaining her joy is another mystery altogether.

"She is happy, when she is around your family, Kai. She forgets herself. Whereas with me, she remembers. The war. The bloodshed. I ...seem to make her cry far more than I make her smile."

Kai says nothing. But Haji can sense the other man's scrutiny. The lines of his face are taut—not with surprise, but sympathy. "I think you're selling yourself short, bro."

"Why?"

"Because all these years, you've supported Saya. Way before she came to us, you kept her going."

"I was fulfilling my duty."

" _Bullshit_ ," Kai snorts, impatient rebuttal to this bleakness. "You helped her because you cared about her. You always have. It's why Saya trusts you more than anyone else. Enough to cry in front of you. She doesn't do that around me or the twins. That's a side she keeps away from us. Something only you get to see."

Haji blinks. He can't think of how to acknowledge this startling observation.

Easy to forget, often, that Kai is more than a messy gym hamper of human habits and foibles, with a headfull of baseball trivia, an almost clockwork tendency to clean his gun every Sunday morning, a ritualistic compulsion to scrub his hands clean before placing a bowl of salt and incense sticks at his household's _Hinukan_ -shrine, a fondness for morning crossfit and a strong dislike of store-bought pastries.

All of that comprises him, but it is not the actual Kai, who still cuts like a bullet to the heart of any matter with brash directness.

"It's a process," Kai says, echoing Haji's words. "Taking care of her will have its ups and downs. Just like anything else. But I know you won't give up on her. Just like I know she's glad to have you in her life." He sips from his glass, his grip firearm-steady, like his gaze. "You didn't see her after the Met bombing all those years ago, trying to be all normal and happy for our sakes. But every time she thought no one was looking, she'd sit by herself and brood. She never said your name once. But from a clam like Saya, that's practically a written confession."

Haji doesn't know what to say to that. The night chill zips up his coat tails, but he barely feels it. All these years among humans, and just when he believes himself jaded to their ways, they astonish him all over again.

"...When did you become so wise?" he manages, both dry dismissal and deference.

" _Zen for Dummies_. Great book for bathroom reading."

"Evidently."

"That, and a trusty playlist of _Journey_ songs."

"Now you are being grotesque."

Kai huffs indignantly. "Hey! _Don't Stop Believin'_ is a classic!"

Haji offers him in that derisive sidelong look otherwise reserved for Nike sock-and-sandal combos, and their wearers thereof. But his mouth is shaped into the subtle lines of a smile.

"Am I interrupting?"

Saya is there, right at the edge of the darkness broken by the bright parallelogram of light from inside the villa. Her hair is a wild corona, skin scented in seaside and sweat. In the chill, a halo of steam rises from her body.

Haji's protective impulses war with the prurient. His eyes want to drink her in, even as his hands move instinctively to shrug off his coat and fold it around her. He gives her the untasted glass of blood meant for him.

She hesitates for a moment before drinking it like a child, cradled in both hands, eyes closed. The earlier games have whetted her appetite. Lately he notices that she wants more blood than usual after physical exertion. Usually, one or two blood-packs suffice. More rarely, like now, she'll take it in a glass, especially in company with the twins.

She has yet to feed from Haji since her Awakening: a distance he can't decide is deliberate or unconscious.

"Just shooting the bull," Kai says, as she settles beside her brother. "What about you? Tuckered out already?"

"Taking a break." She smiles, with a touch of her old spirit. "Giving the girls—" who, alongside their Chevaliers, are sprawled twitchy and shell-shocked in the sand, "—a chance to catch their breath."

Haji smiles, unseen. Huddled together with Kai on the porch, she reminds him of the schoolgirl from decades ago. Innocent as sunshine, but with a lifetime's dark secrets locked beneath her smooth face and bright eyes. Needing only the key of his blood to open the floodgates.

His smile fades.

Perhaps, with Diva gone, she would've been better off if he'd kept his blood to himself. Ignorant, yes, but blissfully free. An ordinary girl, four-fifths erased, but with a loving family, an easy conscience, dreams of a future.

Whereas all Haji had to offer her were the shackles of duty. And now, with the war ended, its brutal scars.

Except he could never keep her willfully ignorant. The unilateral decision to take her memories? Her self? That would be the worst kind of violation.

He is on the verge of withdrawing. Then he catches Saya's gaze, fixed on him in quiet bidding. _Stay_.

Obeying, he sinks beside her, so she is sandwiched between him and Kai. She twines her fingers with his, fond and possessive. Her heat stirs him in the night chill, a divine fireside.

But it is her smile that blossoms a raw happiness inside his chest.

"You both seem so close now," she says, glancing from him and Kai. "Almost like family. I'm glad."

"Yeah. We bonded over suffering," Kai says wryly. "And I don't mean the war. Not even Buddha could survive the twins without going bug-shagging crazy."

She lets off a laugh. "You don't mean that."

"You weren't around when they were teenagers. It was like Jekyll and Hyde times four. They'd be sassing me one minute, bursting into tears the next. Slamming doors off their hinges and shrieking their lungs out every time they got a zit." He mock-shudders. "Felt like I was living in a nuthouse. Haji could tell you horror stories."

"I hope you will." She squeezes Haji's fingers. "Both of you. I've missed out on so much. It's a little disorienting. Or—not a little. _A lot_. I feel like I've crashed into the lives you've all had going during my Sleep."

Here is the crux of her distress. Her hand, in Haji's, goes as cool as his own, and her pulse races.

"You did not 'crash' into anything, Saya," Haji says quietly. "Every moment of every day, you kept us on our paths."

"He's right." Kai places a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. "We always talked about you. Even when things got tough, you inspired us to keep going. Right now, I know it feels like you're playing catch-up. Getting up to speed on how much stuff's changed. But I promise you, this is still your home. We're family, just like always."

"Family." Saya absorbs the word like a tonic. Haji almost feels it diffusing the ache of her loss. "I... I hope so. When I'm with you two, it feels like nothing has changed. Even when everything is brand-new. It's scary... but. It makes me happy, too."

"We'll be here for whatever you need. All of us."

Kai's gentle voice shores it up not as a platitude but as tenable fact. His eyes, meeting Haji's over Saya's head, are completely unmindful of himself.

It is like being at the Met again, the two of them determined to anchor down this fragile girl who is caught between existence and its opposite, while knowing in their bones that it is she who anchors _them_.

Jealousy or ego cannot survive for long in the wake of that. The bottom line, then as now, is Saya's happiness.

She nods, her smile wavering only a little. Not grief, but gratitude. "Always. Can you promise me that?"

"I can promise my lifetime. Whatever that's worth." Kai never downplays his humanity, or its limitations. As with everything in his life, he accepts the failings with good grace, focusing on what is possible, rather than what is not.

It is a trait Haji finds unique to the Miyagusukus, and worth emulating.

Then Kai looks his way with a smirk. "Now _Haji_ , you're stuck with forever. Good luck having fun with _this_ rice-pudding cup."

The mouthiness, not so much.

" _Hey_!" Saya puffs up kittenishly. "I get plenty of fun out of him! And he never calls me _Fatty_ when I take second or third helpings of dinner. Unlike _some_ people."

"He's probably just avoiding your attention. Never know when you'll go all cannibal and eat him too."

"I would _not_! At least..." She flushes, her eyelashes dipping. She regards Haji through them, with a smolder that puts every silver-screen beauty to shame. "Not in public."

Kai chokes mid-sip on his drink. " _Whoa_. TMI—and _disgusting_!"

Saya giggles, unrepentant despite her blush. The sound holds the hot sweetness of butterscotch liqueur, going through Haji the same way. And, dear god, now they are having _a moment_ right in front of Kai, gazes tangled and smiles shy.

Except he is too glad to be embarrassed. Because Saya is glowing, and tangible, and _here_ , not adrift on a cloud of misery where he cannot reach her.

It is a glimpse of grace that cannot be taken for granted. A becoming, if not a promise, of better times ahead.

Or, perhaps, simply the calm before the storm.


	7. Tórir

_Chapter 7! Posted a day early so I can get started on the next one! Following the (mis)adventures of the ancient Chevalier - and the trail of carnage left in his wake. Sorry this installment is so short - but I solemnly swear next one will be satisfyingly long and full of SayaxHaji fluff/smut :D_

 _Also, a huge thank you for all the delicious reviews! Y'all are seriously amazing, and your feedback makes me the happiest of fanficcers! I try keep every comment in mind as I continue to craft the tale, and your suggestions and critiques are always welcome!_

 _Now on with the chapter! CW for violence and mild gore - but nothing more scandalous than vampires being vampires._

 _Review pretty please!_

* * *

1 Chome-1-60 Asato,

Naha-shi, Okinawa-ken 902-0067

Japan

 _Thirsty_.

The boy jerks in his arms.

Hefty as a yeoman's farmhand—face like a dollop of dough and hair shaved down into a suede-fine bristle around his head. Young and strong. But dizzy with alcohol when he'd stumbled out from the bar, waving at his friends before he'd ducked into the alley to unzip and relieve himself against the wall.

The last piss of his life, it would turn out.

The human never saw his attacker coming, before his head was wrenched up, a cold hand covering his mouth just as a fearsome array of white teeth sunk into the spot between his neck and shoulder. The blood gushed syrup thick. Sweet, so sweet. Succulent.

They are in a district chockfull of flashing lights, peals of laughter and skirls of clashing music. Strong fumes of alcohol, with an undernote of rotting garbage, hang like a miasma in the air. Hotels and bars. Nightclubs. There are plenty of people around, mostly young, male and female, all dressed in different colors of the rainbow. All surging in and out of every brightly-lit building, walking meals just ripe for the picking.

The entire place is a bowl of bubbling red stew, and he is _starving_.

Grinning, he grinds his prey's cheek across the rough bricks as he drinks, for no reason but _because_. A substantial mouthful compared to the mother and daughter he'd fed on earlier—but they had satisfied him in other ways.

In retrospect, he should've cleaned the mess afterward and hid the bodies—except his thoughts were an emptyheaded fog that is only just clearing.

Now, he understands what he had barely comprehended at the start.

An insurmountable time has elapsed since the stormy battle.

Since he'd fought, tooth and claw, against _her_.

Yet _she_ is no more gone than he. Unlike before, he _feels_ her—not closeby but on this island. Not the heat-signature but the essence. Yet different, somehow. Strangely diluted. As if—

 _Could it be possible—?_

 _Could she have progeny on this island?_

His heart gallops in his chest. Dread? Excitement?

He doesn't fixate on it, listening instead for the way his prey's breathing goes thready, the heartbeat fading. The moment it does, he drops the boy with a _thud_ , wiping a hand across his bloodied mouth.

Gorgeous heat blossoms through him. It is supplanted by that familiar liquid flow of knowledge. Names, places, ideas, things, all tangling up inside him before smoothing perfectly into place within his system of understanding.

And within that understanding, a sudden name flares spark-bright.

 _Saya_.

He nearly gasps before it hits him. It is not _that_ Saya—the Blue Queen. Nor her sister, that infernal Red, that hot-headed harlot, his wildest fantasy turned nightmare.

This is a different Saya, living and breathing on the shores of the island.

Hand-in-hand with her name tumble other associations: _Red Shield. Goldschmidt. The Mission. Cinque Fleshes. Chevaliers. Diva._

 _Chiropterans_.

He blinks, and shakes his head, and stares at the crumpled human at his feet.

Not an ordinary kill. Evidently not even an ordinary man. This is a member of that... Red Shield. A descendant of one of the men who fought alongside Saya, in her quest to destroy Chiropterans.

To destroy... her sister.

The knowledge makes him blink, and expel a sudden sharp laugh into the air.

 _What have I stumbled into...?_

A world where his kind— _Chiropterans_ , these humans call them—no longer rule? A world overrun by humans—with a Queen who lives alongside them? Treats them as equals? Slaughters her own kindred for them? It is unreal, and awful, and hilarious. So much so that he laughs again, a high jittery sound that bounces off the alley walls and fades into the dark belly of the night sky.

"Hello?"

He turns.

"Hello? Are you all right?"

A female voice. A female shape drifting closer. Long blonde hair. Hazel eyes. Clad in a glittery black T-shirt stretched taut across perky breasts, and denim shorts with frayed edges ending enticingly mid-thigh. Like the lifeless boy, she also exudes hot waves of alcohol.

His first temptation is to leave, eyeblink-fast, before she glimpses him. But after the drink, his mind is bright and sharp and full of plans. He needs a change of clothes. Money. A place to stay, while he parses through the deluge of sensory signals that compose this glittering new world.

And time to reconnoiter, before he seeks out this younger, newer _Saya_.

In threat? In greeting?

He can't say, beyond knowing that the idea of her is accompanied by an irresistible burst of curiosity.

 _Not just her._

 _There are others._

Two more Queens. Daughters of Saya's sister— _Diva_. Raised by a human male, who makes his home on this island, who takes in strays and cares for them, like his father before him. The knowledge seeps into him, warmth and laughter leaping from what feel like cubbyholes in his own memory. Names spangle on the tip of his tongue. _Sayumi. Sayuri. Kai. Sachi. Vicente._

Again, he glances back at the fallen human boy.

 _He is a childhood friend of the Queens._

A smile spreads across his face. A death's head leer.

Tempting to say it was his Wyrd that guided him to this boy. But Wyrd has never meant as much to him as his own will. It was how he, and his brothers, had brought an entire kingdom to its knees. How they had decimated an entire lineage of Queens. How they had reshaped history—with a resounding force that echoes, it seems, to this day.

"Hey—mister? You okay?"

The woman edges closer cautiously. He smells her perspiration, tinged with processed alcohol and bottled-up jasmine. Her heart flutters like a wary little canary in a cage—and all at once his appetite is stirred.

Not for blood. Not even for flesh—although she will certainly suffice if his mood so dictates.

 _No_.

What he wants is this pretty canary's feathers. A camouflage to wear, a nest to roost in, until he orients himself.

Making his choice, he turns and steps forward. The alleyway, pooled in shadow, conceals the motionless heap of the boy's body. She won't notice anyway—because his own appearance is distracting enough. Barefoot, in the frayed trousers and stained shirt he'd scavenged from a trash heap, sweat-streaks of white showing where his face is smeared with dirt, crusted scratches and marks across his exposed skin.

Like a vagrant, or a lunatic.

But his face, after the draughts of blood, has settled into its familiar visage. Heart-shaped and attractively vulpine. The unruly ginger hair sweeping down his shoulders, so dark it is like wet autumn leaves. The strong cheekbones. The lush pink rosebud of the mouth. The mismatched eyes he'd inherited under a thick fringe of lashes—but not from one of the countless 'uncles' who used to drop by to see his mother.

 _The whore's boys_ , they used to call him and his brothers—among uglier things.

All with those same uncanny, ill-matched eyes of their father.

One brown, one blue.

Those same eyes meet the woman's now. Hers widen—not in fear but concern. "Oh my god! Are you all right?"

He smiles and holds her gaze, exploiting, as always, the nobility particular to his expression. That gallant bearing that radiates good breeding and goodwill. That same one that made peasants think it was safe, in his human days, to let their daughters walk alone with him at night. The one that made Queens think, when he became a Chevalier, that they could entrust him with secrets of the realm.

The trust had cost them their lives.

"I am fine."

The language takes flight in his mind even as he opens his mouth—the proper cadences and syllables to use. The woman had spoken in English. He responds in kind. But he deliberately keeps a trace of his accent.

Let her think he is a lost tourist, and respond with that benevolent condescension that makes it easier to drop her guard. Let her think his club-footed inability to bridge language barriers is a translation of naivety and helplessness.

"I was ... jumped near Makishi Park," he says. "They took my wallet."

"Oh _god_! You poor thing! Did you call the police?"

"I could not. My... cell phone was taken too."

More noises of sympathy. She fishes into her own handbag for her phone, and begins punching numbers. But before she gets halfway there, he lurches, pretending to stumble.

" _Whoa_!"

She reaches to steady him, the phonecall forgotten. Pretend-grateful, he accepts her help, letting her encircle an arm around his waist to steady him. This close, heat radiates off her like fresh-baked bread. She has a tattoo in the pattern of a Celtic knot on her arm, a glint of metal in her right nostril, a gold wedding band encircling her finger, and a wide mouth painted the eye-popping color of old blood.

Blood.

This entire world is swimming with blood. All for him.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"I—Yes." He smiles, a flustered schoolboy smile of embarrassment. "I took... a few blows to the head."

A pretty frown. "I hope it's not a concussion. You should go to a clinic."

"I will find one. As soon as... I call the police."

She nods, but doesn't let go. Instead she steers him, with effort, out of the alley and toward a weed-tangled lot where shining rows of cars are parked.

He resists, feigning confusion. "Where are we going?"

"I have a first-aid kit in my car. And a pencil light for examining your eyes." She flashes a reassuring smile. "Relax. I'm an RN."

"A... Registered Nurse."

"Mmhm."

"At the ... Kadena Base?"

"No, they have their own staff there. I work at Lester Naval Hospital. Just a couple minutes away."

"Ah."

Good news. She is a civilian, not a military nurse. That will cause less complications.

He falls into unsteady step with her. Lets her lead him to her car, a blue model that clicks with crisp recognition in his mind as a Nissan Teana. She opens the front passenger door, and eases him into the seat. He stays where he is, head cradled mock-dizzily in his hands, while she rummages in the glove compartment.

Finding what she needs, she coaxes him to look up at the car's ceiling. Then, flicking on the torch, she shines it into each pupil with a businesslike efficiency.

"No issues yet," she murmurs. "But that doesn't rule out the risk. You should be examined every fifteen minutes in case of a bleed."

"I will... go to the clinic. Or hospital. Or wherever," he says. "As soon as I speak with... the police."

Again, that pretty frown. "You should get examined first. I can drive you to Lester Naval. They might see you quicker there."

"Ah—no, no. I would not... want to inconvenience you."

"Not an inconvenience." She smiles. "You wouldn't be the first person I've dragged to the hospital. I've got, um, something of a reputation."

"For ... bringing in waifs?"

"Not waifs. People who need help."

"Ah." He dares a smile of his own. His mismatched eyes dip to her wedding band. "Such... charitable spirit. Your husband must worry about you."

"What?—Oh." Blushing, she pushes a dangling forelock behind her ear. "Fiancé, not husband. And he's _waaaay_ worse than I am."

"Another charitable spirit?"

"A saint. And a doctor to boot."

"Ah." Meaning he must be especially careful, once he's done with this woman, to leave no physical evidence behind. "Pardon my manners. I did not... catch your name."

"Ashleigh. You?"

"I am... Tórir."

"Tórir. That's an unusual name."

"Yes. It means—" _Creature of Thunder._ "Warrior. It is old Faroese."

"Faroese, huh? Aren't they near Iceland?"

"Close, yes."

"Wow. You're a long way from home, Mr. Tórir."

"... Yes."

For a moment, hearing his name on her lips fills in him a floating sense of displacement. Centuries traveled in the short period of an eyeblink, time a black maw that reminds him that the context of his life is a continent and an era away; that his people, his tribe, his realm, exist in a different era that is no more.

For a moment—just a moment—sadness creeps in a dark ring at the edges of his vision.

In the next breath, rage blots it out. A rage that he'd carried with him every day as a human, a cold core beneath the pleasant layers of himself. A rage that was his fuel when he became a Chevalier for the sole purpose of bringing down an entire dynasty of Queens, an exoskeleton that was bitter and monstrous and perfectly ordinary beneath his skin.

A rage that still remains, magnified by centuries of waiting. Wild and dark and tasting of eternity.

"Hey—you okay?"

He blinks. Realizes his hands are knotted into aching fists. Exhaling, he unclenches them. "Yes. I...I am fine."

She looks skeptical, and a little concerned. "Strap yourself in. I'm driving you to the hospital."

"But—"

"No buts. Trust me, you need a doctor."

She stows away her torch, before swinging into the driver's seat. He obeys, with a show of reluctance, marveling for the hundredth time how easily disorientation melts into familiarity with every human he feeds from, his fingers clumsy on the car door, the seat belt, the lock, before they become deft and matter-of-fact, everything melting into smoothness like droplets of frost fallen into a springtime puddle.

The woman turns the key in the ignition. The engine revs up with a purr. From the sound system, music drifts in: glittery strings and lilting arpeggios that are like dustmotes caught in a sunbeam. The sound makes the airwaves thrum strangely. Makes Tórir blink—not with bewilderment but something far more unnatural.

Awe.

"New Viennese Philharmonic," the woman says, noticing his look. "A solo cover by their cellist. Chopin's _Fantaisie Impromptu_."

"...Ah."

The music swells in the car's narrow interior, a gold colored sphere that seems to ricochet through the darkness, scattering into dazzling fragments, then reuniting in a deeper hue, again and again. A mass of soundwaves and atoms taking flight on pure loneliness and the wings of rage, beneath all that Baroque wrapping.

It is the loveliest, saddest, strangest thing he has ever heard.

And with the music, the name comes rapidly, shot like an arrow to the brain.

" _Haji_."

The woman blinks with startled delight. "Huh! So you're a fan too."

"I... Yes. I suppose so."

The blood, taken from the boy earlier, seeps through him in a rich deluge of facts. Histories. Relationships. Faces. This Haji is the Chevalier of the younger not-Saya Saya. Both of them residing in a pretty limestone villa near Naminoue Beach. Old fighters—burnouts—salvaging a future out of a past crafted from bloodshed and bitterness.

Tórir lets the gravity of all these associations flow through him, with a sense of blossoming wonder. And then, a sense of cruel, triumphant purpose.

"... Miss Ashleigh."

"Yeah?"

"I am very thankful to you."

She smiles at that. "Hey, no probl—"

He doesn't give her a chance to finish. He lunges at her, the weight of his torso whamming her skull against the steering-wheel. One ferocious jerk, and he has an arm wedged under her throat, and then he squeezes and squeezes, and squeezes.

She flails and sputters. Athletic and strong—but no match for him. Not with the awkward angle, the cramped space, or his preternatural strength. Her nails scratch pathetically at his arms, palms smacking in a futile drumbeat against the dashboard, the steering-wheel.

When her pulse slows to a thread-fine cadence, then nothing at all, he heaves her body sideways, past the gears and pedals, and dumps her in the passenger seat.

Then he climbs into her empty spot, and pulls the car out of the lot.

All around him, the music sparkles, like glints of colored light caught in a chandelier. _Fantaisie Impromptu._

A slow smile creeps across his face, exposing a white slit of fangs.

 _How fitting._

Once he sinks his teeth into this new world, tearing it apart and swallowing it down in an ecstasy of red, red revenge, it will be his own darkest fantasy come true.

* * *

 _Again, I want to emphasize that the plot is going to be pretty slow-boiling until it overflows into drama. That said, expect a lot of cat-and-mouse games between Tórir and Our Valiant Heroine. Some more gruesome than others._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed - and if you're sad about the lack of SayaxHaji, take heart! Next chapter is devoted entirely to them, and will be the first of many!_

 _Tórir: Faroese variant of the Icelandic Þórr, or thunder. Like the Norse God, Thor - only nowhere near as endearing. In creating him as an OC, I wanted to experiment with a potential villain who was a bit like all of Diva's Chevaliers combined, but with issues of his own, which will manifest during the course of the tale. But never fear, woobify him, I will not. Also, his ability to gain knowledge via blood-drinking (a variation of psychoscopy) is my own headcanon about Chiropterans and their abilities, many of which the series barely touched on. Let me know what you think!_

 _Review, please :)_


	8. Milestones

_All righty! Chapter 8 is up! Long and fluffy and full of Saya/Haji as promised - but with a foreboding trickle of trouble to come. Also gently beginning to explore some problematic dynamics in their relationship (and how they will worsen before they get better). Adult content is imminent, so all minors please vamoose!_

 _A huge thank you to all the lovely feedback I've gotten on this fic! It's a huge incentive to keep going, even when I find myself daunted by the outline's huge chapter count, and the over-the-topness of the plot itself! Remember, your critiques and suggestions are forever welcome!_

 _Now on with the fic! Review, pretty please! :)_

* * *

It begins, inevitably, with a phone call.

Come to think of it, don't such things always begin with a phonecall? Particularly at two in the morning? No one ever calls at that witching hour with pleasant news.

The weekly forecast has promised storms; a half-typhoon, half-squall rolling in off the sea, studded with thunderclouds and sparking lightning. It sweeps through the island with a force that tears shingles off rooftops and snaps trees into splinters. There are sporadic blackouts across the city.

Saya has been jittery all day. Haji has come to recognize these anxious upswings; sometimes they signal surface boredom, other times something darker.

Last night, she'd tried to coax him upstairs with her. When he'd tactfully suggested that she rest instead, she'd pouted in a way that couldn't have flattered him more—until her grumping was undercut by a yawn. Haji had delivered her gently to bed, where she had fallen asleep even before her head hit the pillow. In the morning, groggy and sloe-eyed, she'd gone through her morning rituals like a zombie—until he set a cup of coffee in her hands. It took her, as always, ten minutes to muster up sentient communication—and ten more to peer into their empty fridge and become adrenalized by horror.

 _Oh no! There are no more eggs!_

A state of emergency was declared. Grabbing his arm, Saya dragged him to the supermarket to fetch groceries and the standard typhoon-season supplies, with an earnestness he secretly found charming. Her interest in mundane tasks shows that she is still rooted in the world, surely? Not overwrought or catatonic?

In the cheery fluorescent lights of the store, debating the merits of strawberry versus chocolate yogurt, she seems deceptively ordinary, a teenager pleasantly absorbed in daily chores. The cart squeaks as it is piled higher and higher with fruits, vegetables, cereals, technicolor sweetstuffs. She barely glances at the pricetags—just pounces on whatever she likes.

Haji would gently caution her against it. Not because they lack the funds—between Red Shield's monthly stipend, royalties from the _Philharmonic_ era, and the sizable nest-egg the first Joel Goldschmidt left for them both, they are flush. Not even because, as per the teachings of his youth, it was the gentleman's duty to be industriously frugal—and thus to have the paramount claim over finances.

None of that matters. There is simply, within him, the residual child who lived on beggary and scraps, and who abhors wastefulness.

Except he is too distracted by the sweet sonata of pronouns Saya tosses around— _We should get that black forest cake—Our kitchen doesn't have a spice-rack, does it?—The manager says next week they'll have Keats Mangoes for us._

More distracting is the way her little hand flits so often to him—his arm, his shirtfront, his coat lapel. Haji finds himself nodding, making agreeable noises. The rest of him spins like a top.

There is a _pinch-me_ incredulity to this ordinary outing. Because this is _Saya_. Because she always makes everything fresh and exhilarating and unpredictable, even herself. Because she compels him, by her sheer existence, by the swooping highs and spiraling lows of her life, to be brave.

Not brave in battle—where Haji is in his element. Brave at _life_.

By himself, Haji is dead-steady and staid, his i's dotted, his t's crossed, his body a residence of quiet calm. But—for a man who always travels in solitude, who has an entire case at the villa full of awards for _Most Outstanding Soloist_ —he has never considered himself a loner. His life pivots too intensely on Saya for that.

Without her, he is always on standby. Always in a static state of being, but never _becoming_.

And that makes all the difference.

With Saya, life is never a straight line. It is a disorienting loop between joy and despair, wreckage and salvation.

A fairytale in everyday skin.

At the delicatessen, Saya places orders for steak cuts and bottled blood later this week. Explains, at his curious look, that Kai shared a blood-soup recipe with her, and she wants to try it for him. Flitting to the beverages section, she grabs a tin of imported Turkish coffee he'd liked in their Zoo days. At the cosmetics aisle, she sprintzes on body-mists and perfumes so strong they do his head in—a bouquet of rose, lily and violet on one wrist, a bowl of peaches, plums and pomegranates on the other.

She complains about how perfumes these days don't smell as authentic as the attars of their heyday. Tries to enlist his help anyway, in choosing an overpriced bottle, and then a handful of lipsticks in candy colors.

He obeys, gallantly, even as his eyes glaze over. He has never been interested in the secrets of the feminine toilette—although he has more patience for it than Kai (When the twins were adolescents, they'd always asked Haji to chaperone them on shopping-trips, instead of their short-fused father).

Except, following the shiny crown of Saya's head as it bobs between the aisles, he realizes: she's doing this for _him_ as much as herself.

Trying to figure out what pleases him.

This tumbles into place in his framework of understanding, connecting with other details that had previously eluded him: the restlessness, the spendthrifting, the physical touches, the constant promptings for his opinion. All the little signs pointing to what he'd once scarcely believed was possible.

Saya's fingers pluck at his sleeve. "Do they sell frozen _blini_ here?"

 _Blini_?

He hasn't tried that since he was a boy; his grandmother would dole out the Romani staple, fragrant with chives and slathered with goat's cream, on special occasions. A rarity in itself. Even before his family were driven to such dire straits in France that they'd traded their only son for a loaf of bread, food was scarce and dangers (diseases, authorities, robbers, racists) abundant. Anything they could get, they'd pickled and salted, to make it last as long as possible.

 _He who eats much eats away his own luck,_ his grandmother used to say.

And now, here is Haji, decades later. Sustaining himself on not a bite of food, and yet preserved more thoroughly than any pickle in his grandmother's jars.

"I am not sure," he manages. " _Blini_ is not a popular snack here."

"Well. Maybe I can try it from scratch? Eggs. Cream. Flour. Kai said it shouldn't be too complicated."

"Perhaps not."

"Are you sure you don't want any salmon roe? You used to like it as a boy."

"It's fine," he says, light-headed.

Shyly, she threads her fingers through his. "Maybe I'll get some _tofuyo_ instead? I know you hate the smell, but I'm kind of peckish."

"If that is what you wish."

"I also saw these cute men's socks on display. They've got Dragon Ball Z characters on them. I'll get those for you."

"Of course."

"And the matching boxers too."

"Hm," he says, floating a hundred miles away and yet anchored to nothing but her hand in his. The lights make his eyeballs buzz, the Muzak of Classic 80s Hits is ghastly, the aisles are a sensory overload of colors, and somewhere in the distance, a child throws a screeching tantrum.

He doesn't care. He would say _Yes_ to anything right now, be it serenades or slaughter.

Smiling, Saya squeezes his hand.

"Haji, I'm pregnant."

He drops back into reality. " _What_ —?"

Saya dissolves into giggles. He tries for a disapproving frown. But it is erased by the brown eyes twinkling so wickedly into his own.

"Sorry," she says. "Just making sure you recognize the milestone we've crossed."

"What milestone?"

"We've bought no bottles of hydrogen peroxide. For bloodstains."

He hadn't considered that. But as the shock seeps in, his fingers tighten on hers.

Hopefully, that milestone becomes as commonplace as their grocery list itself.

By the time they wheel their provisions to the checkout, he is on such a cloud of contentment that he watches Saya hand over the credit card without once glancing at the totals. They are likely in quintuple Yen—and it hardly matters.

The teachings of his youth, such as they are, can shut their bone-box.

Outside, he piles their bags into the car. Nearby, Saya pores through the displays of a digitized newsstand.

"...Did you see this?" she asks, pointing at an article in the _RyūkyūShimpō_.

"See what?"

Saya scrolls through the newspaper. "It says a mother and daughter were found dead in their home in Yonashironohen. Raped and mutilated by a gang, according to the police."

"Uruma is not as peaceful as it once was. The crime rate in Koza alone—"

"It says their bodies were ... bloodless."

Unease rises. Quietly, he touches a finger to the screen, flipping its pages to peruse the article. "It may be a ritual killing."

She seems perturbed. "Maybe."

"What is it? Are you concerned there is trouble?"

"No ... I don't know." She folds her arms across her chest. "What if it's a Chiropteran?"

"Chiropteran attacks have not occurred in Okinawa for thirty years, Saya. And never regarding—"

 _Sexual assault._ A majority of Delta67's victims exist in a nightmarishly neutered state of thirst, seeing humans not as sport but as walking bags of hot live blood.

The only time he and Saya encountered murders of a darker nature was at _Le Lycèe Des Cinq Flèches_. That perpetrator was a Chevalier—a crazy one.

"Mm," says Saya. The small sound has a complex structure: doubt or agreement.

"Red Shield would have contacted us if they suspected a threat," Haji adds gently.

"You're right. Just—maybe we should check it out?"

"Do you think it necessary?"

"It doesn't seem _un_ necessary."

Haji hesitates. "Red Shield can have the area scanned, Saya. There is no reason for you to—"

"No reason to exert myself. _I_ _know_."

Her gaze, bleak where it was pure brightness before, makes regret fan up hotly. Haji reaches for her hand. "If you are restless, we can head to the beach after the rain stops. Or to—"

She twists away. "It's fine."

"Saya—"

"Let's go. It's starting to pour again."

They pile the rest of the groceries into the car. During the ride back, Saya stays quiet, a mood he recognizes, and one that makes him, while not exactly afraid for her, nonetheless watchful. When he tries to coax her into conversation, she answers first in monosyllables, then not at all.

Par for the course, as always.

 _One milestone down,_ Haji thinks ruefully. _A million more to go._

* * *

At home, the power is, to borrow an Americanism, _on the fritz._

As if dissatisfied with the villa's dark interior, Saya retreats to the solarium—a spot Haji has rarely set foot in. From the door, he watches her putter around in the soil with pots and a packet of seeds. Wants to ask what she is up to, except he gets the sense she is trying to compensate in her own haphazard way for days' worth of nesting.

Trying, like at the supermarket, to create a sense of normalcy.

Since her Awakening, Haji has altered his schedule to suit hers as a matter of course. He's taken a lighter workload at the University of Arts, teaching smaller classes so he can be at home more. No overseas travel for Red Shield ops, either. Any Chiropteran dramas are best handled by their agents.

This is meant to be a time for Saya to relax. She needs it; since her Awakening, there is a fragile somnolence about her.

Haji and her family have done their best to indulge her, wary of overstimulating her. After her accident, the carefulness has become layered with scrutiny. They each take unofficial 'shifts' to oversee her, seldom letting her go anywhere unaccompanied. Keeping her away from anything dangerous: high places, deep waters, fast cars.

In the early days, Saya had halfheartedly acquiesced. But Haji knows she is concealing a restlessness that will only get worse.

Late evening, and the power is still out. By the glow of tealights, he watches Saya scarf down leftover _champuru_. A good sign. She is still too thin—the thinness he doesn't like, a reminder of the war-days, when she was stringy and sallow-skinned, stress eating her inside-out so nothing seemed left of her but the brute willpower radiating from her eyes.

Her expression echoes those days: a contemplative line etched between her brows.

She asks if Haji is willing to resume their sparring sessions soon. Her reflexes, she complains, are at half-speed; she must stay active. The request would be concerning, in other circumstances. But he intuits that she simply wants to regain her inner focus, repossess her body.

Afterward, Saya coaxes him to play cello for her, as he did during rainy evenings at the Zoo. Now, as then, she hovers behind him. But instead of critiquing, she is quiet, lip bit and eyes intense. The stillness unnerves him; there is something nearly predatory to it. As if there is a storm brewing inside her as surely as the downpour outside.

Once, he dares to ask, "Is something the matter?"

"Nothing. Just thinking."

 _Thinking_. Never a good sign—for either of them.

He is midway into Faure's _Après un rêve_ when she comes up behind him. Her fingers drum along his shoulders. Tangle into his hair with a catlike kneading. She play-tugs, ruffles them into knots, _yanks_ until he flinches.

" _Saya_." It is testier than expected. "What on earth is wrong with you?"

She kisses him. Deeply.

 _Oh_.

He is so obtuse, sometimes.

In the steamy heat of the bedroom—hers again—she shucks their clothes like cling-film. The weather's inversion—rain-dark outside, candle-honeyed inside—makes her glow. She is so lovely it hurts to look at her. A physical ache, thrumming through his bones, goading him to touch her even as everything inside him screams he doesn't deserve it.

Having Saya is like possessing liquid gold, an alchemist's fever-dream come to life. His heart shivers through every inch of him. It is a struggle to stay in control.

And tonight, she is edgy, frantic, needy. Bites like hot gunpowder. Nails tearing webs of red across his skin.

Gently, he lays her out across the bed. Kisses and gnaws every bit of her, her gasps turning to jittery cries as he buries his mouth between her thighs. The curls there, closely cropped, are already slick. When he combs through the tangle to pull her skin taut, sucking slowly and hungrily, she sobs on needful jerks. The taste of her presses in on him: rich, hot, delightfully salty. A body-shot before the lime.

The first night, he'd been too timid to serve her to all her potential pleasure, a stop-and-start rhythm of inexperience.

But this time, his predilection is for absolute _thoroughness_.

It is half pornography, half unchoreographed torture. The curl of her body, all golden and twisty. The lush pink O of her mouth, and how it matches that mouthwatering pink where his tongue plays. Her mewls spur him on. Little fingers sometimes scrubbing at his hair. Sometimes flying back to clutch the sheets with outstretched arms, her head tossed back and thighs shaking. And as the seconds unwind, her cries break into overflowing croons, her hips rippling as if to feed herself to him.

Haji hears himself breathing raggedly in answer: low unrolling tones of pure greed. The sight of her—the _sounds_ —leap up his body and around his brain, a psychedelic loop to replay over and over alone. It is almost a two-way valve. Wild altos to dipping fingers. Wilder spasms to gently-scraping teeth. Sobs and welling slickness to his raw openmouthed hums, until it is like biting into a juicy peach. Stains on the sheets below.

Right then, braced against her bed, he wants to drag her out of herself and into his insatiable mouth. To inhale and drink and devour her until she is deep down in his lungs, the cage of his ribs, his every love-saturated heartbeat.

A way, not to bind her to him, but to remember—once her Long Sleep takes her away—that this torn-open want is for no one but _her_.

Then Saya's body becomes a twist of distress, pleasure edging nearly into torment. Yanking him up by the hair, she wraps her legs around him, claiming him in a tangle of limbs the way you fold a ribbon into a thoroughbred horse's mane.

" _Now—now—please_."

He tries to fill her slowly, patience thin over urgency. She is deliciously slick for him. Still not easy to enter—though not near-impossible like the first time, which was more torture than it was worth given the stress-lines tugging Saya's sweet face into a knot, her eyes dark and wet and drunk on pain.

Then, as now, his whole body feels oversized, achy, invasive. _Why do I hurt her this way?_ he thinks in a split-second's misery—because it is so unfair to give her even a heartbeat's suffering, when for him she is depthless joy.

Then it happens despite itself, one long slipslide the rest of the way in, and the heat melts his brain and turns his body into a strata of fast-twitch muscle and pure _need_.

" _Oh_!"

Saya shudders and cries out. But her face is broken-open in something more layered than pain. Her thighs flex against his flanks, hands scrabbling at his arms—a helpless struggle not for freedom, but fusion. It doesn't stop until he is sunk completely into her.

Gasping, he stays there for a full minute. Straight-armed, tremolo-spined, hair hanging in dark disarray over Saya's blindsided body.

"Are you... all right?"

Her lashes flit up to regard him. Slow breaths and pulsing heat, and a _Yes_ that sets him on fire.

He forgets everything then—rationale, reason, restraint. Slowly, he flows over her, into her. Lets her dictate his rhythm, with snaky hips and stuttering cries, and hands that clutch and caress.

A steamy haze lays trapped inside the walls, turning both of them sweat-silked and jittery. Saya kisses him in time with the sway of their bodies. Wet, unpracticed kisses that flutter up her lips, and take wing on the gathering heat, until she is eating his mouth with desperation, trying to introduce a more forceful grind into their pace.

He senses that she is trying to scale the walls of her body and escape. Like if she wills herself not to think, but rushes things along, leaping from one stage to the next, she will elude the present as much as the past.

Be free of what she so irrationally dreads: inhabiting her own self.

"Saya—" It is an effort to shape the words. "Slow down."

Her _Mmmm_ isn't negation but futility. Her ankles are crossed tightly against the small of his back. Whole body pulsing exquisitely around him as she works her hips, face blotchy and gasps frantic.

It tears at Haji, but he doesn't succumb. He slows to a stop.

"No, oh, _please_ Haji—"

He swallows her high-pitched cries. She struggles furiously, drumming her heels at his spine and slapping two-handed at his chest. Her distress is palpable: a raw chemical signature of fight-or-flight.

Except halfway through she lets off a kittenish noise, the wildness melting into simple need. Her body melts too, arms and legs a soft knot around him. He doesn't stop the kiss until she is perfectly still, except for gusty sighs and those erratic tremors racing beneath her skin.

"Ha-Haji." Her drunken voice seeps into his bones. "What are you doing...?"

"Sssh."

He circles his hips, deep and fluid. Saya cries out in surprise. When he catches her gaze and holds it, still rocking inside her, her face—sweat-damp and rosy—goes darker still. A flush of giddy discovery.

"Don't rush," he says. "We have time."

"We—we do."

An unexpected gift. A room with a locked door, no time limit, no reason to guard the entrance, no danger shimmering at the horizon.

Nothing but the stormy spread of the night beyond.

Gathering her against him, he draws back on his knees with her straddling his lap. Saya moans, half in shock, half in delight. Then she catches him up in the tangle of her arms and legs. Takes over, with the stirring dance of her own body. Not up and down, as he's always imagined, but back and forth, a voluptuous rocking that leaves him half-lidded with rapture at the sight of her.

"Kiss me," she gasps, but he can already think of nothing else.

His mouth catches hers—breathless stabs of tongue leaving her as slick and swollen above as she is below. Each kiss just another way to be inside her, breaking off to mirror the dreamy curl of her smile. In the candle-light, she is flushed everywhere, a rose blooming wild in the heat. Rocking against him with a natural ferocity, her breaths sawing frantically in the silence before they crack into sweet broken sobs.

The sounds melt into his prickling skin. So raw, so obscenely beautiful, he could spend just listening to them.

Then she starts crying, those sobs rising from the deepest part of her, as if the heat wave has broken into a thunderstorm.

Haji falters, afraid for an awful moment that he's hurt her. But she stays clinging to him, anguish oozing from her wet eyes, until he comprehends what eluded him before. That even as their lovemaking is the unbearably sweet culmination of years of waiting, it is also the upheaval of terrifying emotions Saya has kept locked in a box for over a century.

"I'm s-sorry," she hiccups. "I—I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Sssh." He dots her sodden face with kisses. "Whatever you feel, Saya. Just—let yourself feel it."

"I d-d-don't know what I'm doing."

"Do it wrong, then."

"But—" She lets off a lovely hitching cry when he drags her closer. Palming her breasts down to the architectural marvel of her waist, before distracting her into motion, a rolling give-and-take that makes her whole body clutch at his. "Ha-Haji—"

"Sssh. I've got you."

"Oh—oh—!" The contralto transmutes into soubrette as he finds an angle to her liking. Red eyes riveted to his, a short-circuited glaze of shock. Her breaths come in shaky swoops, the rest of her going perfectly still, as if all her volatile drives are converging in on a single locus.

"There," she manages between hitched gasps. "Oh—oh please—just there!"

The candles have nearly gone out. The dim atmosphere is redolent of their bodies, and of the foggy rainfall outside. Saya's climax drags out of her on a hoarse wail. Not like their first night: a brief flash to distract from the relentless stretch of him inside her. This is _breakage_ , her whole body undulating in the constriction of his arms, a rise and fall without end. Sobbing, she claws his arms, head tossed back and spine twisting in slow-motion: her flush has gone bright crimson, from the tips of her ears to the dip of her belly.

Haji watches with an infinitude of fascination. If orgasm is the zenith of sex, then this is almost the Müller-Lyer equivalent of its illusory opposite.

Then he can't think anymore. He is engulfed by the pull of her, his spine curving as he gives her all of him. A full-bodied spasm of completion he can't parse from madness, his whole body a surge of momentum tumbling her back, covering her, riding her roughshod, then collapsing across her.

Panting, he stays where he is, loathe to let her go. Beneath him, Saya gasps his name in gulps for air. Her whole body is still caught in powerful pulses that seem to wipe everything from her mind. Nails dragging ferociously down his back, hands kneading, thighs flexing.

"Don't—don't go—" It is a strangled plea. "Don't—please don't—oh, oh, _oh_ —"

He crushes out her cry on a kiss. It almost _hurts_ , she is clutching him so tight, inside and out. Leaving him both swept up and subjugated, shredded to nothing by her hot nails and piercing cries and the totality of her need. Hers, hers, _hers_.

When she finally goes, he hopes she leaves him dead.

At last, they shiver to a stop. The scent of sex and downpour fills the room. Everything silent except for their broken gasps and the dripping of water from the eaves.

Shaken, Haji stays in place, the sensory shock of _Saya-Saya-Saya_ still exploding through his system. His head lolls down with a drunken heaviness, hair falling in his eyes. Yet his mouth finds hers unerringly.

Saya sobs a little—in relief or exhaustion, he isn't sure. Her lips are salty with tears.

Then she wrenches away.

"Saya—?"

"That was—oh God." She sits up, swabbing at her wet eyes. "I—I have to go."

"Saya—" Concerned, Haji catches her arm. She gives off a fritzing energy, like after a battle. "What's wrong?"

"Leave me alone."

"Did something happen? Did I hurt you?"

" _No_."

She tries to rise. But her legs wobble like jellyfish.

Haji hesitates, trying not to crowd her. Not because she'll lash out, but because her face is drained of color and she is shaking all over, differently from before, her eyes gazing wildly off into the trance of memory.

Not a panic attack—but the presage of one.

He could let her stumble off to the bathroom, like their first night. Damage-control. Distance. It seems to be her habit. Perhaps it is simply her right as a fighter, to be entitled to her scars, her space.

Or, perhaps, it is time to redefine the space between them.

Gently, he passes his arms around her. Saya jerks. Her body holds the same tension from the war, a wire drawn vbiratingly taut across her shoulders. But she doesn't throw him off.

"Saya," he says again, softer, and her eyes flutter shut. She takes a breath—and holds it.

Watching her fall apart is one of the most agonizing things in Haji's life. Watching her piece herself together is, in its own way, worse. The way her eyes stare with the glossy sheen of a doll's. The way she forces the fear, breath by breath, back into that hellish little cell in herself. The way her spasms quiet into a thin, nearly imperceptible tremor, then into a body-drained stillness.

Holding her, Haji thinks to himself how strange it is, to be given everything he wants—yet still be dangling over an abyss, unknowing, uncertain.

Maybe Saya feels that way too.

For decades, Diva's death was her idée fixe. Now that she's accomplished it, it isn't easy to dust off her ordinary life, or fit herself into it as if nothing has changed. _Everything_ is changed—herself, most of all. With the end of a long journey comes the end of endurance; it will take time to stretch herself out of the wreckage and take flight again.

Fortunately, she has time. This evening's upswing feeds a spark of hope.

Unfortunately, it may be worse before it gets better.

Saya's eyelashes are gummed together with tears. He kisses them. "Are you all right?"

"Mm."

They subside across the damp sheets. Snuffling, Saya cuddles close. Head cozied against his shoulder, her mussed hair ticklish against his jaw. Her heartbeat still skitters crazily.

"I didn't think—" she stops, and swallows.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just—I haven't felt that good in so long. I told myself I didn't miss it. I didn't deserve to." He hears the impulse to tears. Her voice trembles. "I'm such a liar."

Something scrapes in his chest. Rage—not at Saya, but at the wretchedness of the war, for taking even the smallest consolations from her.

Nuzzling into her heap of hair, he rubs his cheek against hers. "You are far too hard on yourself, Saya."

"Am I? I'm just ... so used to it. Never letting go. I've been terrified to since—"

 _Since the Vietnam massacre_.

The ache in Haji's chest becomes an agonizing knot. But her admission reveals what he's privately suspected. Whatever makes her falter during intimacy, it is a blockage in the mind more than the body.

He doesn't verbalize it. It wouldn't do to put words in Saya's mouth. Better for her to define it on her own terms.

So he waits, the silence an invitation.

Finally, Saya whispers, "I-I don't know how to explain it. After Vietnam, it feels like there's—this ugly slithering _thing_ inside me. Like it's waiting to kill me, the second I'm not in full control. Each time, all I can think is that—if I don't shut it out—I'll go unhinged inside. Lose myself completely." Her gaze drops. "I know it sounds stupid."

"Not at all, Saya." How can it, when it is so explicitly bound with all her old hurts? "Identifying yourself with control... It was all you had in the war. The habit will be hard to break at once."

"I didn't think I ever could."

The tears come again, shaking themselves out in spasms. Not sadness, but relief. Since the war, it's evident she's forgotten that preciously simple emotion; it crashes in on her now with unrecognizable force.

Gently, Haji circles her closer. She clings to him, each bitten-down sob scalding him inside as much as her. She can't talk, and he doesn't try to make her. The words don't matter. It is enough that she can tell her truth this way, passed from skin to skin.

It is a moment before she comes back to herself, trembling all over.

"God, look at me," she hiccups. "I always ruin the mood. I-I'm not any good at—"

"Ssssh." He kisses each wet eyelid with loving care. "It is not a true milestone without one of us soaked in blood or crying."

Half-huffing, half-laughing, she jabs her fingers at a soft spot on his side. A miraculous feat. He does not to have too many soft spots.

Carefully, he readjusts them, so their two glossy heads conspire across the same pillow. Her smile is riveting. If Haji were a praying man, he would pray then, for nothing more than the miracle of this moment, caught in the storm-grey filter of time.

"You know," she whispers. "You're… not at all what I expected."

"Expected?"

"In bed." Her eyelashes flit shyly, slyly, to his face. "I thought things would be... I don't know. Prudish. Flannel nightgowns and doing it under the sheets in the dark. Instead you're easy."

He crooks a brow. "'Easy?'"

"N-Not! In, like, a skanky way. I just mean... in your skin. In the way you touch me. Talk to me." She pecks him meltingly on the lips. "It's sexy."

He relaxes into a half-smile, fatally susceptible as always to the tiniest dollop of praise from her. "We have known each other a long time."

"Is that all it is?" Mischief fizzes in her words. "It wasn't the Marriage Manuals that taught you all those tricks?"

"Marriage Manuals?"

"At the Zoo's library. Joel had an entire collection, remember?"

He shakes his head. "I never read those."

"Not once?"

"No." His smile grows boyishly lopsided. "I was more interested in those lurid pillow books at the bottom shelf. What were your favorites? _The Lustful Turk. Gamiani. The Way of a Man with a_ _Maid_ …"

" _Wha-a-at_!" Her embarrassment simmers in the air. "How do you know they were mine?"

"You bookmarked your favorite pages." He meets her horrified expression with his most innocent one, "With embroidered pink ribbons."

Saya lets off a puppyish whine and buries her hot face in his shoulder. " _Haji_!"

He exhales a quiet laugh, and after a moment she does too—a champagne-bubbling spill. _Victorian_ is the term so often misapplied to Saya and himself. As if they grew up in proud Britannia, in a climate of scrupulous morality, straitlaced as saints and sipping Imperial tea on Sundays—not in France during the high drama of the Long Nineteenth Century, two unruly wards of a free-thinking radical like Joel Goldschmidt, who barely batted an eyelid at having a _siège d'amour_ installed in the guestroom and who imparted sexual politics to fourteen-year-old Haji with a blunt matter-of-factness: " _Always remember that love, which we cry up as the source of our pleasures, is nothing more than an excuse for them."_

Neither he nor Saya were exaggeratedly prim and proper. But there were certain standards of decorum both were raised to abide to—ones well-suited to Haji's own circumspect nature.

Yet here, the natural reserve inverts into honesty. _Easy_ —as Saya says. The undercurrent of intimacy that goes beyond blood, to the shared joys and pains of childhood.

Gently, he strokes a finger along her arm. Smiles when she lets off little shiver. After a beat, she peeps at him, eyes shy.

"I keep feeling…"

"Hm?"

She is still smiling. But her eyes go somber. "I keep feeling it'll be all right. Whenever we're together like this. But sometimes—"

"What?"

She hides her face in the crook of his neck again. He feels her gathering herself, her silence making a smooth glaze between them. "It's nothing."

"No, please. Tell me what is on your mind."

This time, her laugh is a beguiling deflection. "You pound me out of earth's orbit, then ask what's on my mind?"

"Something always is."

She winces.

Haji doesn't want to push. Humor is fine. But emotion is another matter altogether. They have always guarded the heart of themselves in that sphere, Saya and him. Always gone for tersely-coded communications, both of them clutching to their secrets as long as possible. The spillover was in the neutral territory of the battlefield; not the car seat, the kitchen, the supermarket isle, the bedroom.

Now, the scripted lines of warfare have been struck out. It is both a thrill and a terror to improvise from their own hearts, as simply _Saya and Haji_.

"I'm sorry," she whispers then.

"For what?"

"Everything. The—the moodiness and meltdowns. The craziness."

He starts to refute the last word. She cuts him off.

"You're so sweet with me. So patient. And I—I _want_ us to get on with our lives. Get to the next part, and the next, where it feels like we're together as a normal couple and living _life_. But—"

"But?"

She broods even as their gazes meet. "But I'm still the wreck I was before. It's not your fault, but it's also what I was afraid of. Not being worth the trouble. It's hard to stay true to someone who's only there for a—what do they call it? A triennium. Maybe you'll get tired of it. You'll decide I'm not worth it, and—"

A chill settles in Haji's chest. Terrible, that she'd reach the opposite conclusion he had. That, once healed, she'd find him a redundancy at best, a nuisance at worst. Not because Saya possesses a fickle nature, but because she deserves tenfold more than anything he can offer.

Whereas the idea of _his_ abandonment even crossing her mind—!

He rolls so she is tumbled beneath him. The pink of her mouth is too luscious, too tempting. He kisses it over and over. She is crying again, but it doesn't matter; tears are allowable in this outpouring of emotion. Palming her spine, kneading the wings of her shoulderblades, clutching at adoring handfuls of her hair, Haji feels himself burning inside-out in the heat of her, and sighing at the heavenly feel anyway—so much more real than the rainfall, the bed, the hazy grey shapelessness of the world.

They break off, foreheads touching in a damp circle. The drumming rainfall and their gasps are the only sounds in the room.

"Please," Saya says. "Don't leave me again."

" _Never_ , Saya." He can't get enough of combing his hands through her hair. "During your Long Sleep, I thought of you every single moment. Now that you are here, I only want to keep you happy. To be _good_ for you."

She blushes, shyness a silky scarf across self-doubt. "What? You aren't already too good for me?"

"I need to do better. To take care of you."

"Oh Haji. You don't need to _take care_ of me. I-I want us to be partners. Equals."

He turns this proposal around in his mind. Such a simple thing. Yet there is nothing simple about it. Not for them.

He has spent too long loving her as a soldier, stationed at a great distance. Has never remotely imagined himself worthy of her, so that even to the last, after confessing his feelings at the Met, he'd willingly thrown himself in harm's way, flotsam from the stormy past, because his death was easier to imagine than a world where she might love him back.

It will be like this for a while—Ares clashing with Eros—until it stops being and simply _is_.

Quietly, he says, "If we are to be partners, I have one request."

"What?"

"Please talk to me more."

"Talk…?"

"Trust me enough to share if something troubles you. Or if there is anything you need. Anything at all."

"Aren't I always asking you for things? I've pestered you since we were young."

"You have never 'pestered' me, Saya. Not then, and not now." He lets the cool cradle of his palms meet her cheeks. Lets his thumbs brush, delicately, across her wet eyelashes. "I simply mean that you needn't shut yourself off. Not the way you did—"

 _In the war._

He doesn't say it. He doesn't need to.

Saya sighs, the angles of her face shadowy. For heartbeat, she looks eerily young to Haji. And, eerily, older than even her one-hundred-odd years of existence. In that moment, he sees Saya the warrior: lonely and tired and difficult to understand.

But that makes it easier to love her. Because he realizes: her unhappiness is not the gulf stretching between them. The gulf _is_ Saya, one single unbroken thing, a heartbreaking continuum of her.

Until she finds the courage to become someone new.

"Give me time," she whispers. "I'm not sure how long that is, but—let me have it. Until everything stops being so strange. Without the war. Without—"

 _Without Diva._

He starts to speak, but she touches a fingertip to his lips.

"For now, I-I'd like you to do something else for me."

"Anything."

Her lashes flit upward. The look is an echo from their Zoo days. Saya in all her mischief: dark-eyed and irresistible.

"I-I want to try some things I might like. Things from those 'lurid' pillow books you peeked into. Is that okay?"

The sweetness sends chills through Haji. Makes him want to gather her closer, murmur soft things into her ear, promises to have and to hold, a thousand and one things massing in his chest like a thunderhead at the horizon.

But he doesn't say any of that.

Instead he sinks down, kisses and hands worshipful, to show her without a word how much he loves her.

Later—a delicious span of hours later—she drowses like a cosseted kitten against him. Outside, the storm has softened, a white-noise that fills the air with the scent of downpour. Haji's gaze stays fixed on the rain trickling at the window. Mesmerized by those dappled shadows, and the sound of Saya's breathing: smooth inhales, whispery exhales.

 _This can't be real,_ he thinks.

Gently, he kisses the whorl of her hair. Smiles as she sleep-mumbles about crispy _soki_ for dinner. He could hold her like this until dawn, listening to her breathing as avidly as the rainfall.

At the bedside table, Saya's cellphone jangles.

"Wha—?!"

Saya flails awake in his arms. Her bleary eyes skitter from Haji to the ringing phone. In that moment, they are both thinking the same thing: _This can't be good_. It is Red Shield's private number. Only Kai, David, Joel and a handful of upper-echelon operatives have access to it.

Steeling himself, Haji reaches for the phone—but Saya beats him to it. Sitting up, the sheet clutched to her chest—a modesty he finds both redundant and adorable—she lifts the receiver with a shaky hand. "H-Hello?"

It is Kai. Haji recognizes the hard-hitting pitch of his voice. Whatever he says wipes the look of apprehension off Saya's face.

Suddenly she is red-alert and steely. " _Where_?"

Kai's answer is an indistinguishable buzz. But Haji doesn't need to hear the words to catch the subtext. Especially not when Saya's free hand reaches, in unthinking reflex, for the sword at her bedside.

His languor drains away, replaced by the chill of inevitability.

 _Trouble_.

* * *

Siège d'amour: Quite literally a 19th century sex chair. I kid you not. Google it.

Also, the marriage manuals of the Regency/Victorian era are a beauty to behold. Not because of their bizarre interpretations of domestic bliss and the unattainable feminine ideal, but because, when you read between their verbose lines, they're really not so different from your typical Cosmo article today: rife with spurious advice, thinly-veiled condescension, and an emphasis on the woman's looks as opposed to anything upstairs.

We haven't come that far, baby.

Also, Haji teasing Saya about the pillow books is the modern-day equivalent of "I ttly scrolled through your browser's search history to see what flavor of porn you liked." The works he mentions - The Lustful Turk, Gamiani, The Way of a Man with a Maid - are all available online, and are all heavily NSFW and politically incorrect in the merry way of porn through the ages. Read at your own risk.


	9. Chaos

_Okie-doke! Updating the fic early as the next installment will be a little late-ish. Trouble is abrew, Saya gets herself into - then out of - a jam, and the Mysterious Chevalier takes a fancy._

 _CW: Attempted sexual assault/violence in the second section. Begins right after the line "...eyes the same arctic blue as Diva's are cutting across the rain to hers." It culminates more in Saya going on a rampage, tbh, but the scene could certainly be construed as disturbing. If y'all require more specific TWs, please PM me and let me know. The last thing I want is to ruin someone's day while they're reading shippy fanfic._

 _That said, I hope the chapter provides a more fast-paced contrast to the previous few. Comments and critiques are always welcome! Review pretty please!_

* * *

Itokazu Hospital

1 Chome-28-1 Tomari,

Naha-shi

They find the twins in the emergency room.

Sayumi and Sayruri are still in their pajamas. Sayuri's are a milky green shade of chartreuse, silk with lace piping on the collar and hem. Sayuri's resemble gym clothes: shorts and a baggy black T-shirt whose embossed red-and-white letters—BABYMETAL—are already half-disintegrated by multiple bouts in the washing machine.

They both sit huddled on the waiting-room bench, dull-eyed and disheveled.

V is stretched out full-length on the bench opposite to them. He pops a _kendama_ ball into its cup: a mechanical tic that belies his restlessly darting eyes. In the corner, Sachi feeds coins to the vending machine and kneels to fetch bottles of Calpis milk.

"—What's happened?!"

The four of them glance up as Saya rushes in, tailed by Haji.

Stirring from her slouch, Yumi says, "It's Adam. They found him near the Bar Junket, off of Sakurazaka Street."

"...Adam?"

"David and Julia's youngest," Haji says quietly, folding his wet umbrella shut. To the twins: "What is wrong with him?"

"We're not sure," Yuri says. "His throat was torn open. When his friends called the ambulance, he was in hypovolemic shock."

A jolt of disquiet goes through Saya. More than that—a déjà vu.

 _Didn't they say that about Riku, after Diva attacked him at the Zoo...?_

Shivering, she snaps to attention.

"Was he attacked by a Chiropteran?" she asks.

The twins exchange glances, a non-verbal cue she is growing accustomed to— _Is Saya having one of her 'episodes' again?_

Yumi says, "There haven't been Chiropteran attacks near Okinawa in _ages_ , Auntie Saya."

"Who could it be, then? Someone he knew?"

"We aren't sure. But it was definitely someone dangerous. Red Shield is investigating the incident."

"And Adam? Will he be okay?"

Sayuri bites her lip. "The injury barely missed his carotid artery. They're trying to stabilize him with a blood plasma transfusion. But there's a risk of organ failure. Given how long he was left to bleed out..." She breaks off. Sachi slips into the seat beside her, sliding a milk bottle into her lap with one hand, and squeezing her shoulder with the other. She curls into him, fingers entwined, and shuts her bleary eyes.

Sayumi, twisting one of her curly hair around her small fingers, explains, "Adam's barely eighteen. He's always been the kid brother of our gang. Yuri and me used to babysit him, back in the day."

"Where are his parents now?"

"David-san got the news and is traveling back from a Red Shield meeting in Beijing. Likewise with Julia-san and Ezra."

"Ezra?"

Moments like these, Saya longs for a social cheat-sheet. Something to shuffle in her mind's recesses, so she is up to speed on her family's complex new world, their complex new networks. Having to ask questions about every name dropped, every anecdote shared, makes her feel like a lost tourist—or a pest.

Then Yuri says, "Ezra is the middle one. Twenty-five, a scientific prodigy, and a total mommy's boy. He was out at a conference with Julia-san in Tokyo. But they've cut it short and caught a flight back. We're still waiting to hear from Dee. She might be in Caracas, or—"

"I just flew in."

The approaching voice belongs to a young woman in a white tank-top and combat fatigues.

Tall and incredibly well-built, her suntanned skin is stretched over cultivated muscle and sleek curves. She wears no badge or insignia. But at her throat, a red-crystal cross hangs from a dark chain. Her hair is dirty-blonde with paler streaks, clipped short in a style as chic as it is militaristic. Her face too, for the lean angularity of its jawline and cheekbones, is attractively feminine: full lips, straight nose and dark lashes over intelligent blue eyes.

A deep cicatrix—year-old, ribbed and pinkish-brown—slashes from her breastbone to her right shoulderblade. A battle-scar from a Chiropteran's claws.

Strangely, it is the scar, and her cross, that allows Saya to make the quantum leap of association.

" _You're_ David and Julia's eldest?!"

The woman raises an eyebrow. "I also have a _name_."

"Which is…?"

"Deidra. But call me—"

"Dee. Or else she'd kick your teeth in."

Kai steps up behind the newcomer. He smells like the night air: it swirls off his motorcycle jacket, the tips of his open-gloved fingers and windblown hair. The same scent circulates off Dee's clothes. Saya guesses he must have picked her up on his motorbike.

Yet there is something about the juxtaposition of their bodies, apart yet not, that is... odd. She can't quite say what it is.

Shaking it off, Saya stammers, "I-I thought—I don't know. That Mr. David and Ms. Julia only had boys."

Dee snorts, "My Dad's dream come true. But out popped a bouncy, bawling, eight-and-a-half pound me."

"Don't listen to her!" Sayumi gripes from the bench. "Her Dad's totally _gaga_ over her! He got her a Ducati for her twenty-sixth birthday!"

Dee rolls her eyes. "Let it go, Yumi."

"Like Hell! You _know_ I had my eye on that baby."

"I got the Ducati. You got my right-hand-man. We're even."

V, sprawled on the bench, sinks lower as if concealing his massive bulk from view.

Kai scrubs a weary hand through his hair, before elaborating to Saya, "Yumi met Vincente through Dee's unit."

Dee smiles with one side of her mouth. "For which Kai's never forgiven me."

"And never will! That _uumaku_ is a crappy influence on Yumi."

"Y'all better stop talking about me like I'm not here," V grumbles, even as his expression suggests an ardent wish not to be here at all.

Sachi, in a bland murmur, his eyes on the ingredients label of Yuri's milk bottle: "You could, umm, make yourself useful and fetch everyone fresh snacks from the cafeteria?"

"Who asked _you_ , asshole?"

"He's right, you useless lug!" Yumi leans over the bench and swats V's shoulder. "Dee must be starved after her flight. And I haven't eaten in hours!"

"Let Sachi get snacks. Why should _I_ go?"

"Because I've ordered you."

The attitude switch is immediate: a Pavlovian realignment of muscles as the big man swings his legs off the bench, standing quickly, efficiently, before jogging off toward the cafeteria.

Marveling, Dee watches him go. "I could barely get that stubborn POS to _shower_ when I was his CO."

Yumi examines her chipped black nail-polish. "You were his CO. Not his Queen."

"Good thing I still pull rank over both of you."

" _Ugh_. Don't remind me."

"Pull rank?" Saya glances from Dee to Yumi.

Shrugging out of his jacket, Kai mutters, "Dee is the new David, as of last year."

" _What_?"

"You heard right." Dee's dry humor drops away, replaced beneath a sheet of businesslike steel. She offers a hand. "Deidra Silverstein. Though I prefer Dee. I apologize for not being at your Awakening, Otonashi-san. There was a hassle in Venezuela that I wanted to handle personally."

"'Hassle'?"

"Chiropteran nest. Isolated incident, by the looks of it. Nothing to worry about."

"I—I see."

They shake hands. The young woman's grip is calloused, strong. It reminds Saya of David's. The resemblance to Julia is there too, in that bedrock of pleasant calm that can invert at any moment into scalpel-sharp focus. Saya likes her on sight—yet she gets a sense of watchfulness off of her; as if Dee is measuring Saya with a yardstick and trying to decide whether she falls a few inches short of expectation.

Which is a feeling Saya is used to.

Shaking it off, she says, "Yumi mentioned there are Red Shield scouts investigating the attack. Have they shared any developments with you?"

"Not yet. I plan to head downtown in person. But first—"

"First...?"

Dee lets her hand drop from Saya's. "I needed to check on my brother."

"Oh."

Dee steps past her to read the patient-status board, and Saya fights off that ever-renewing surge of extraneousness. It calls attention to how much time has passed. To how she no longer fits into this busy world she'd left behind.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she fights off a surge of frustration— _stop it, not everything is about you_ —and is startled when Haji touches her shoulder. She glances up questioningly. But her Chevalier simply radiates a quiet companionship.

Without moving his hand, he asks Dee, "Do you know why Adam was at the Bar Junket?"

Dee, accepting a Calpis bottle from Sachi, shrugs. "Routine Friday night. He was hanging with his buddies."

"No chance his injuries resulted from a brawl?"

"Not likely." Dee prods two fingertips at the neck of her bottle. "Mom called during my flight. The doctors told her there were two puncture wounds near his jugular."

Haji's fingers tighten fractionally on Saya's shoulder. Her own body is caught in a creeping chill—not dread but a bone-deep premonition.

She says, "Take me to Sakurazaka Street."

Dee stops mid-sip on her drink. Beside her, Kai frowns. "Huh?"

"You heard me. If it's a Chiropteran, no one will figure it out faster than me. Or _find_ it faster than me."

"Saya," Kai cautions. "That's not a good idea—"

She cuts him off. "More people might get hurt. This will save us time, and trouble."

"Our teams can handle it. Once David gets here—"

"Mr. David should be with his family. Not out there."

"Saya." This is Haji. "Kai is right. If there is a Chiropteran, I can head out with Deidra and Kai. There is no reason for you to—"

"No _reason_?"

Her Chevalier gives her a look mixed with concern and care. It is unfamiliar. The consequence of a newly shared bed? "Not in your present state."

Bristling, Saya shifts her body so his hand drops off her shoulder. "You're being ridiculous. You and Kai _both_. It's a hunt for a Chiropteran—not an all-out attack."

Dee, meanwhile, sets down her bottle. She seems intrigued. "You want to head downtown, Otonashi?"

"Dee, stop encouraging her," Kai warns.

The young woman ignores him completely. In the charged lines of her body, Saya recognizes the concern for Adam that she's burying deep down, and her readiness to divert her energies into action. _Another workaholic_ , Saya thinks, with a flicker of grim kinship that is mirrored in Dee's gaze.

"Let's go," Saya says. "We're wasting time here."

Behind her, Kai and Haji exchange glances. But she doesn't look their way. Tired of that constant concern in their eyes that they disguise as kindness—a kindness that is getting harder to bear. It isn't normal, at least not the kind of normal she can cope with.

Whereas the possibility of hunting a Chiropteran?

That is a _normal_ she can cope with just fine.

* * *

Even at this hour, Sakurazaka Street is lit up like a carnival.

The rainfall has softened, layering over the colorful shopfronts and neon beer-signs like frosted glass. The roads are an oily soup of cars, motorbikes and pedestrians. Tourists with cheap umbrellas and oversized shopping bags. Men spilling out of the bars, laughing too loudly. The air smells sweet and sour at once: wet concrete, fried food, tailpipe fumes, and the heat of too many bodies packed together.

The last time Saya was here, thirty years ago, it was to stop Kai, then on a warpath to kill Forrest. Not much has changed since then. The place has gotten a makeover after the US' slipshod 'withdrawal' from the island in 2025. More family-friendly attractions in an effort to boost tourism: arcades, motels, coffee-shops, art stores.

But beneath that remains a seediness no amount of surface charm can conceal, like a whiff of decay hanging near a trash heap.

Together, she, Kai, Deidra and Haji edge through the thoroughfare. Dee leads the way, umbrella aloft, conferring with Red Shield operatives on a hi-tech earpiece. Saya never imagined she'd find an earpiece 'cool' but she almost wants to touch this one.

"We've got two of our guys by the DOJO Bar," Dee says. "Two more at Makishi Station, and another team at Asato. They're questioning possible witnesses. I've also got them triangulating the area for Chiropteran readings."

"Where did they find Adam?" Saya asks. "The Bar Junket?"

"That's right. By the rear entrance."

"Take me there. If there's a scent, maybe I can trace it."

"Understood."

Saya turns to Haji and Kai. "I need you two to check Makishi Station."

"Why there?" Kai asks.

"Because if it's a Chiropteran, it may be attracted to the crowds. Haji can help you track it."

Kai frowns. "Saya—will you be okay by yourself?"

" _Yes_."

She wishes her family would stop asking that. It is an impediment to recovering her sense of fitting. Like it's inappropriate for her to be out and about, doing anything more invigorating than shopping and sipping smoothies since the war is over.

"Saya—" Haji begins.

"Don't _you_ start!" she snaps.

Her Chevalier blinks, before his face settles into blank lines. A sign of resignation, not rebellion. "We will contact you if we find anything," he says tersely.

"Good."

She turns away, avoiding his eyes, and the recent, disorienting thrill of intimacy. They've only made love—what?—a handful of times. Yet part of her feels girlishly a-flutter whenever he so much as looks her way. Her body makes it worse: throbbing each step from the sweet soreness of an entire night of being adored.

Except she needs to re-impress them both as an adult. As his CO _and_ Queen.

She doesn't glance around when Haji glides off into the crowd. Kai follows, slower, with a parting glance not to Saya—but Deidra.

Which, again, is odd.

There is no time to ponder it. The other woman is already moving in fast strides down the main drag. Saya follows, dodging around a group of rowdy youngsters. Strange, that a few hours ago, Dee's little brother would've counted as one of their number. Now he is in the ER, its closed doors concealing an organic disaster over which none of them have any control.

Just like with Dad. And Riku.

Then she hears Diva's voice, right in her ear, _Life is like that. Sometimes you're crowned the Queen. Sometimes your sister stabs you through the heart._

 _Life is random chaos._

Shaking it off, Saya sprints until she is abreast of Dee. Curiosity compels her to ask, "The twins say there've been no Chiropteran sightings in Okinawa in years. Have you received intel that says different?"

Dee shakes her head. "Nothing. It's been peaceful for ages. I've read Joel's Diary, so I know proximity to your blood isn't enough to trigger a spontaneous transformation. It takes—"

"Diva's song," Saya says quietly.

"Right. Red Shield worked hard to seize all copies of it. DVDs, youtube uploads, MP3s, illegal torrents. Most are stored in our archives. Even if there's the odd recording of Diva on the interwebs, D67's effects are now so diffused it's impossible to turn anyone into a Chiropteran."

"Yet Adam had bite marks on his throat."

"Bite marks. And blood-loss." Dee's perturbed squint resembles David's. But her smooth voice is pure Julia—even if the snark is anything but. "If it turns out Adam was planning a drunken prank, I'll beat his ass woke."

"I'm sorry about this."

"Sorry for what?"

"You could've been at the hospital with him. Instead I asked you to bring me here."

Dee shrugs it off, a no-nonsense gesture that encompasses both _No problem_ and _Quit whingeing_. "It may sound weird, given who my mother is," she mutters, "But I hate hospitals. Too much thumb-twiddling. I'd rather be out getting something done."

Saya's mouth twitches in a reluctant smile. "Maybe you take after your father."

"Maybe." Dee lets off a wry huff of laughter. "The old man loses plenty of sleep over it."

"So why did he let you become a Shield?"

"He didn't _let_ me." Her grin is darkly ironic. "The running joke is that it was inevitable."

"Inevitable?"

They stop at the intersection, the roads a shellacked red from the signals. The pedestrians are a heavy swarm of umbrellas at the sidewalk, waiting to cross.

"To be honest, in the early days, I wanted nothing to do with Red Shield," Dee says. "I wanted to be on my own. So I took a six-year enlistment with the USMC, kissed the fam goodbye, and spent the next few years on overseas rotation. For a covert op, we were assigned to a nuclear sub as riders to an insertion point. Routine stuff. I was an E-4 then. Studying to be a sergeant. Five hundred feet underwater, we suffered a malfunction. Or so it seemed. Pitch blackness, and emergency lights flashing everywhere. Then we heard the screams." Her expression shades. "Turns out there were Chiropterans aboard the sub. 132 crewmen, of whom seven became monsters. By the time they'd finished, there were four crewmen left. Myself included."

"God," Saya breathes. "I'm so sorry. I can't imagine—"

Dee shakes her head. "We were lucky to survive. While the monsters ran amok, we locked the hatch of the maneuvering room. It kept them out. But we knew they'd break in eventually. That was the worst part. The waiting. Like being trapped inside a death-box." She exhales, measured. "At some point, a power surge blew out the main engine. Bits of the sub broke open; the seawater swept in and sucked the Chiroprerans out. Along with the bodies of their victims. Red Shield sent a retrieval team to get the rest of us out before the sub sank. Kai was on that team."

"Kai…?"

The other woman's eyelashes dip. For a moment, in the red patina of the streetlights, her face seems softer, almost girlish. "It was a favor to my Dad. He was on an operation in Nicaragua, and couldn't get to me. So he sent the next best fighter. I was never so relieved as when Kai first hauled us out of the water. Or so angry with myself for being so helpless." She glances at Saya. "I joined Red Shield a year later. Got to know your history, from Joel's Diary, but also from your family. Gotta say, it's weird to be chitchatting with you in person."

Saya bites her lip. "It's… a little weird for me too."

"I imagine so." Her eyes glint with a knowing levity. "Maybe that's why you're out here hunting for Chiropterans, huh? Going with what you know."

Saya smiles back, appreciating the effort. "We'll know if it's a Chiropteran in a minute."

They race along Kusai Dori. The rainfall turns the streets a luminous gray, like the bottom of the sea. In the gloom, the shopfronts and the headlights of cars pulse luridly like far-off lighthouses. Saya can see the Bar Junket rising into view: a bright glassed building flanked by a row of near-identical restaurants. The signboard—a cheerful green cactus in a sombrero—flashes in the downpour.

Hardly the place to picture a Chiropteran stumbling in—much less attacking someone. What if there was a mistake?

 _You won't know until you know_ , she thinks.

She and Dee take cover beneath the building's awning. The rain pelts down in a fury. Saya stares through the downpour at the glowing array of lights across the curvature of street. She can see into the distant windows of buildings if she chooses, but she isn't interested in using her Chiropteran eyesight.

She's interested in sounds.

Beyond the rain beating like the flutter of a hundred wings. Beyond the hallucinatory skirls of music and peoples' voices. Beyond the strident eddies of traffic: radios, engines, tires, horns. Her ears filter out the excess noise, amplify the encouraging.

Thirty years ago, the action was a clumsy hit-or-miss. Now, one war and countless hunts later, it is pure reflex.

 _Is there a Chiropteran nearby?_

Rats scurrying in the back-alley. Ten yards. Sago palms dripping under the weight of rain. Twenty yards. A couple arguing over where to eat, huddled beneath the canopy of their umbrella. Fifty yards. Peals of laughter and off-key singing from a karaoke lounge. A hundred yards.

Nothing else. No roars, rising up in bright ellipses through the dark of a half-muted world. No familiar resonances signaling: _Danger_.

"Pick anything up?" Dee asks.

Saya shakes her head.

"Wait until the rain slows. It might be easier then."

"The rain isn't an issue," Saya says. "I can hear their roars the moment they start. But there's nothing."

"We'll try a different spot. Maybe we can—" Frowning, Dee lifts a hand to her earpiece. Her voice segues from casual to commanding. "—Then spread out. There are areas where there could be more eyewitnesses. Or signs of violence. Check the back-alleys, the parking lots, the fire-escapes. If your sensors can't get a read, then log into the police feed for live reports—"

A frisson of déjà vu nearly makes Saya smile. It is like missions with David: his clean-scrubbed Old Spice aroma and steady professionalism somehow transposed into the feminine shape of this new handler, who smells of Lady Speed Stick and Parliament cigarettes, yet makes the same _tch_ -ing sound of disapproval and wears a Smith & Wesson Magnum casually beneath her canvas jacket.

"—sent over Kai Miyagusuku and Haji to Makishi Station. Coordinate with them and scan the area for—"

Saya starts decrypting the airwaves again, ears tuned in, when her whole body snaps into alertness.

Someone is watching her.

Blinking, she glances around. Dee, in conversation with her subordinate, doesn't notice. _Can't_ notice, because she hampered by human senses.

But every other pedestrian dotting the rainy sidewalk is human too. The gangly man hiding beneath his jacket as he sprints toward his car. The coterie of middle-aged American women clumping through the swinging doors of a hotel. The _sarar_ _ī_ _man_ in a strident argument on his cellphone, standing by the half-open window in the office above. No one is paying Saya any attention.

Yet she is being watched.

Slowly, Saya edges beyond the awning. Looks left, then right: a full-sensor sweep for friends, or foes, or...

Family.

She senses family.

It is one of the gifts in a Chiropteran's possession—knowing when others are close. An ability that varies in degrees of accuracy from one Chiropteran to the next. It isn't as simple as a whiff of familiar scent, or the air abuzz with a particular sound-wave. It is baser than that.

The call and response of blood.

In Saya's experience, it works as a two-way circuit, so the connection sparks to life only when both parties are on the prowl. The emission can be downplayed, or switched off completely. She'd danced with Solomon at the Lycee ball, none the wiser about his identity; she'd spent days traveling with Amshel in the guise of Elizaveta, never suspecting a thing. Others, she's always sensed right off: Diva, indisputably. The Phantom, everytime he'd slavered for a battle with her. Haji, whenever she lets herself be guided toward the quiet intimacy of his presence.

Red Shield's scientists have termed it _The_ _Primal Bond_. David refers to it as _Haragei—_ the talent of a martial artist to sense killing intent. Lewis has jokingly nicknamed it _The Force_. Kai, more than once, has called it _Hella Creepy._

Whatever the case, the sensation is intensely physical.

Saya feels it now.

Her stomach drops. Adrenaline spikes her heartbeat. Her eyes dart everywhere, seeking out the source.

 _Who is it?_

 _Who is here with me?_

It isn't a cursory interest radiating toward her. It is a lethal energy: cold, dark, disturbing. It skims her surface and seeps into the secret core of her. Then a whisper comes to her ears, a slurred sibilation like a snake.

 _Saya_.

Gasping, Saya lurches back. Suddenly her whole body is caught in jackrabbiting tremors. A single word whizzes through her skull: _MoveMoveMove!_

She obeys without question. Deaf to Dee's startled yell. Deaf to the rain pelting down to soak through her clothes. Deaf to the shrill _screeeee_ of tires and blatting horns as she leaps into traffic, nearly colliding with a car.

Blood beats in her temples, her arms, her legs. But the rhythm is off-kilter, as if someone else has commandeered its flow. She is running at full-pelt down the late-night streets. Not at ordinary speed, but at the full velocity of a predator. Dee calls after her, but the words are swallowed by the wind. Too far away and beyond return, her movements like flying but faster.

Running _away_ from the voice? Or running _after_ it?

 _Saya._

 _Do you want to play?_

The wind whips up to a force that makes her body shriek wherever it is touched. Her ears shriek, their bowls vibrating against the slashes of air; her bones shriek, their unflexing angles cutting through the space; her muscles shriek, burning from the shock of exertion; even her hair shrieks, whipping behind her like the tail of a serpent.

She doesn't know when she slows down. The stretch of a chain-link fence—rust and barbwire—leaps at her. She skids to a stop. The block around her is desolate, the windows boarded-up or broken on the old buildings that stand like ruined squares of cake between an alley overrun with garbage. In the distance, a train wails.

"Oh God." Her whole body shakes with her rapid heartbeat. She sinks to her knees. "Oh my God."

She doesn't understand what just happened. Has never experienced something like it before—a blind frenzy of instinct. Not since Vietnam, and its resurgent flashbacks. She'd thought she'd get over it: the jitters, the stupid panic-attacks.

If she'd acted like this in the war, at the barest threat, she'd be long dead.

 _What's wrong with me?_

The rain glues her hair and skin to her clothes. She shivers, inhaling in the wet stink of the alleyway, and the salt distress of her own body wafting up from her collar. The neighborhood smells like a landfill. Worse; a drug-den. She needs to get out of here. To find Dee, and apologize for taking off.

Once the rain eases off, maybe they can head to Makishi Station. The scan at the Bar Junket was useless. Worse— _delusional_ , because what she'd sensed was impossible.

 _It has to be._

 _Otherwise—_

Then she feels it again. Someone watching her.

Saya goes perfectly still. The sensation is stronger than before. And this time she can pinpoint it exactly.

 _There_.

On the roof of a burnt-out building. The rain pounds down like a beating. She lifts an arm, eyes scrunched up against the downpour. The street is unlit darkness, but her eyesight is crystal-clear. High above, on the crumbling ledge of the rooftop, something crouches.

 _Someone_.

Saya tips her head back. Cold raindrops patter down; she blinks them away. The shape above her is human. Or human-sized. Except it is alit on the ledge with the grace of a black-bodied spider. The skull, half-shrouded in shadow, is cut from pale angles. She can't discern its features, or the color of the long hair. But she realizes the face is speckled with blood.

 _Who—?_

Then she feels it, cold and paralyzing. _Thirst_.

It creeps down the crown of her head, across her skin, into her eyes, filling them with a hazy red. It sluices from her spine into her chest, pooling in her gut like dark dirty acid, so she burns and freezes at once. It radiates powerfully off the shape on the roof: a singular thirst, poisonously deep, impossibly malignant.

Like the aura of death itself.

Then the eyes meet hers. In the sheeting rain, they glow preternaturally blue.

 _Diva?_

Saya's pulse trips on double-time. Hands opening and closing on empty air: expecting to feel the weight of her sword. But there is nothing there. She is alone. Unarmed. And eyes the same arctic blue as Diva's are cutting across the rain to hers.

"Heeeeey girlie."

She whirls.

From the corners of the muddy lot, strangers converge. Four in total, if her distraction—hallucination?—hasn't warped her senses.

Just a girl, all alone, ninety pounds soaking-wet…

She must seem like an easy mark.

The men melt from out of the dark, surrounding her. Nothing as high-level as the _Kyokuryu-kai_ —Okinawa's Yakuza. Even with the absence of recognizable _daimon_ , she knows that. Not _bosozoku_ either—the rowdy motorcycle gangs whose raffish stylings Kai had once emulated. These men are scavengers. Lowest of the low.

From the distance, Saya can smell the alcohol on them, the staleness of sweat and the smoke from cheap Spice—the synthetic drug popular on the streets.

Their eyes rove over her, lewdly hot and hostile. Human—but trouble of a different kind.

"What're you doin' here, girlie?" the tallest one croons. "You loooost? C'mere. Lemme help you."

His companions snigger.

"Go away," Saya snaps, adrenaline loosening her tongue. "I don't have time for this."

"Aw. C'mooooon. You see anyone else around? You help us. We help you."

More laughter—full of dirty crawly things. The men are fanning out around her.

"I mean it," Saya says. "Fuck off."

Instantly, she thinks: _Stupid_.

In her highschool days, Kai warned her once that in a confrontation with creeps, the smartest move is never to insult. You don't show fear—but you don't challenge, either, or act like nothing is happening. You allow your opponent the chance for a face-saving exit. If he takes it, good. If not, you attack. But trash-talk only sparks tempers and egos—thus escalating the danger.

Bluffs are no good unless you back them up with blows.

Saya doesn't plan to. She isn't a street-brawler—popping kneecaps and kicking out molars. If she fights, it is to kill. Except she can't risk human blood on her hands. Not after Vietnam.

Not _ever_.

Her eyes flick again to the rooftop ledge. The rain hits it at a hard slant, splashing off the surface and dripping down the eaves.

But the strange shape is gone.

 _What—?!_

A moment later a hand falls on her shoulder. She spins, just in time to see the pinkish tinge of alcohol to the tallest man's eyeballs. Then his fist fills her retinas: a sucker-punch that collides with the soft part of her cheek. Saya's head snaps back—less pain than shock. She tastes blood in her mouth, and smells dirt and smoke and smeared curry on the man's fingers.

Snatching a fistful of her shirt, he hauls her up.

"Bitch." It's less an epithet than a crude summation of fact. "Fuckin' _yariman_ strutting in like she owns the place."

"Must be a real starved _yariman_ to show up here," his companion says. "Starved enough to eat a dog's asshole."

"Or maybe any asshole, uh?" another guffaws.

"Let _go_ ," Saya grits out.

The tall man hits her again. The belly this time, putting force behind it, his fist driving deep into the muscles so Saya's breath catches. There is pain now, a bright dynamite blossoming from her gut to the rest of her body. She grunts as he shoves her up against the chain-link fence. The other men crowd closer, the high salty reek of bodies in a lather of perversion.

"Real hot," one of them says, his fetid breath rising to her nostrils. "Bet she's real hot down there."

"You'll know once I'm done," the tallest mutters, dropping one hand to fumble with his zipper. "Gonna rip this bitch open from Hokkaido to Hiroshima."

The zipper's teeth, stripping the air, are unnaturally loud to Saya's ears. Her heart wallops in her chest, missing beats.

Over a century old, the survivor of an immortal blood-feud, and she's never dealt with something like this before. She's been threatened, she's been attacked. In her fights with Phantom there was always an impending chill of defilement, but it was never given the chance to occur. Haji was always on hand. Allies were always closeby. Her own strength was always unimpeded.

Even at the bleakest point in the war, she'd imagined herself dying. But she'd never imagined this.

 _This._

Her whole body jitters with a tension that on another woman would be panic—the mind falling back into spastic denial or ahead into sickened anticipation.

But Saya is holding herself together against the red tide of instinct. Already it is igniting through her—filling her senses with the taste and scent of blood. Bright as an A-bomb, blinding and brilliant and beautifully easy: the urge to bite, bruise, break—

 _No_.

She can't— _mustn't_ —let go.

It's not a matter of irreparably hurting these men. If she attacks, she will _kill_ them.

"You don't want to do this," she says.

One of them cuffs her across the temple, hard enough to make her ears ring. Growling, she struggles on reflex. Then a sudden stab of pain flares in her ribcage. It is the point of an old SOG knife, its blade dark yet bright. It digs into her flesh through the fabric of her blouse, a wet point of blood seeping out.

 _Oh God._

This is going from bad to worse. But in Saya the upswelling of awareness isn't terror. It is _rage_.

"Don't—for God's sake— _don't_ —"

Still holding the SOG knife in one hand, the man grabs her buttondown blouse in the other. He wrenches it open, tiny buttons skittering everywhere. She flinches as one of them pings her in the eye. Underneath, she has on a plain white camisole. The tall man seizes a handful of the blood-splotched fabric and yanks it upward, so forcefully that the cloth, bunching up under her arms, nearly lifts her off the ground.

It is a sick shutter-snap: a blur of blackness as the fabric is peeled off, branding the scene in her mind's eye—the men's faces hanging above her, teeth bared, eyes glinting, while around them the rainfall seems to change and darken and chill.

Then it is too late.

Saya barely feels the electrifying trickle of the rain on her naked skin. Barely feels the rough hands on her breasts. Haji is the only one who has touched her here, and the first time was a tiny jolt of panic that softened into buttery sweetness, her whole body melting for him in welcome.

This is an _attack_ , and bloodlust slams into her at the moment of contact, zero to sixty.

The primordial wrath of a Queen.

 _That's as far as you go._

Eyeblink-fast, Saya's body blazes and breaks free. Her right arm lashes out, a whiplike precision. A _crunch_ , a wheeze, and the closest man drops, his larynx snapped.

In the next beat, she pivots, one leg flashing, a pale arc in the gloom. The kick collides viciously with the next man's ribcage. A muted _crack_ , and blood gurgles from his mouth. His ribs have splintered, puncturing the lungs.

" _What the fuck_ —?!"

The remaining two men scramble back. In the drumming rainfall, their slick faces are gray with alarm. They've probably never felt fear—real, primal fear—in their quarter-century-plus of lives. Now all they can do is stare, with a transfixed muteness, at the girl considering them out of glowing red eyes.

" _Shit—shit—"_

" _Get away_ —"

Saya straightens slowly. She feels the coldness of the rain washing over her, but also a dizzying wave of heat. It's like the night in Vietnam: a supercharged surge filling her skull, threatening to crack it open, a mantra of pure instinct taking flight on octaves of climbing frenzy.

 _Killkillkillkillkill…_

Slowly, she snaps her neck to drain her sinuses. For an instant she can smell the men's fear—familiar, fevery—but any emotion she feels in counterpoint is as undefined as the scenery itself, glazed beneath the downpour.

In her ear, Diva whispers: _Life is like that. Sometimes you play the prey. Sometimes you're the hunter._

 _Such beautiful chaos._

Then Saya _lunges_ —and blood leaps into the air like the rainfall flowing in reverse.

* * *

 _How beautiful._

Tórir can't stop thinking it. He can't stop smiling. He can't look away.

He had meant to drive off in Ashleigh's car. To drain her blood, dump her body, then wear her shape so he could access her apartment for shelter and supplies. Yet something kept him circling the area. A peculiar blood-song, its pitch tantalizing as a _hardingfele_ , its wild beauty straining at the heart behind his ribs.

The same heart throbs heavily now, each ventricle a plucked string of desire.

He has never seen anything so enthralling in his years. Not since watching the Red Queen on the battlefield.

 _Beautiful._

In war, the Red Queen was always utterly fearless. It was a pure, blind, nearly lunatic fearlessness, born to a breed of creature with no conception of the emotion at all. A sensual fearlessness: he'd loved nothing more than watching the Red Queen glare down at a horde of enemies, and see naught in her eyes but the unflinching glow of victory. He'd loved nothing more than touching the Red Queen afterward, her body a wonderland of wounds, as she purred as sweetly as a kitten. He'd loved nothing more when she was rested and healed: how she'd mount him, take him into her, slick and hot, her face aglow with power. Power over him, over battle, over life and death itself. He'd loved most how she'd fold herself around him afterwards, replete and exhausted, licking the salt on his skin with a dreamlike tenderness.

A tenderness that hid beneath the truth of her existence: to embody war itself, its perfections and atrocities, its lows and highs.

 _Will you ever stop fighting?_ Tórir had asked her once.

She smiled, placing her forefinger against his lips. _You may as well ask I stop breathing._

 _But how far will you go? For what purpose do you or your sister exist?_

Her palm stroked his cheek. _For balance. For crafting things of beauty from chaos. Until the human horde grow into their own._

 _Grow into what?_

 _Into creatures so deadly... that I am no longer needed._

 _But—_

 _Sssh._ The small finger upon his mouth again. _My end will come when it comes. Not before... and not after._

She'd often ended their conversations with that. Each time, she'd starved all of Tórir's answers and fed them at once.

 _Gods_ , how he'd loved her.

And— _gods_ —how he'd loathed her.

Loathed her for burning hard and hot as a star, in the center of universe that was otherwise dimensionless darkness. Utterly blind to the misery she and the Blue Queen spread: their armies cutting swathes through towns; homes burned down; children left fatherless; babies torn from mothers' breasts; soldiers fighting and dying for causes in their name.

The Queens had spawned suffering everywhere, echoing and reechoing, burgeoning together into a cacophony of human ichor.

As a boy, he'd swum through the depths of that ichor. A skill that had not come without practice—the choking swallows of terror, the breath-held torments of humiliation, the muscle-cramped fatigue of toil—but which had propelled his body through the dark sewers of his home to the bright surface of possibility above.

It was what he and his brothers had owed themselves. To break free from a life of futility and fish-gutting. To be more than the human scum floating like debris at the bottom of a pool, doomed to live out their lives in the blackest waters. People of no consequence, no dreams, no future.

They'd sworn to escape that. To swoop to the very heights of immortality, burning with a fire of their own kindling.

Burning so hot they scorched the Queens themselves to ash.

 _We succeeded,_ he thinks now. _We succeeded—but only just._

Below, the Queen— _Saya_ —pounces on the two humans. One of them yells and slashes with his dagger. A line of blood spews from her bare shoulder. She doesn't even stagger. Her half-naked body, in the arrowing rain, glows like fire. The small pointed breasts, the ribs visible, the strong V of her back and the beads of spine like a pearl necklace sown beneath the skin. Her eyes are glowing red, and her mouth...

That _mouth_.

Pink and plump, a pristine vulva hiding sharp white teeth. Like the entrance of Hekla, the Icelandic mouth of Hel itself. Tórir would walk across molten rock to lay one kiss on that mouth.

Which is a perfect replica of his.

 _Is it possible...?_

Soundlessly, he creeps along the rooftop. The Queen—fierce little bitch—is swinging a barrage of blows at the human's body. Even from the distance, Tórir hears the bones _crunching_.

The man's companion, flattened to the wet pavement, stares at the scene with a bovine stupidity. His wide eyes see what Tórir does—the feral fangs of nightmare set in a face as fine as porcelain. From this angle, the resemblance to Tórir—his lineage—is evident.

Is she, then, not the Red Queen's daughter—as he'd suspected—but the Blue's?

Impossible to credit. The Blue Queen had died in childbirth, despite his brothers' efforts to keep her up the spout. The Blue Queen was an irritant anyway. Always floating off into the ether, moony and vacant-eyed, even when she was being whipped to ribbons. Always staring at nothing, even when she was being fucked raw into the straw-mattress.

Besides.

The last Chevalier who'd bedded her wasn't Tórir.

It was his second-eldest brother, his favorite. Jøkil—with his tawny skin and hair like sun-warmed wheat, his smoke-roughened laughter concealing beneath a mind of ice-cold cruelty. Jøkil was the swordsman. Neither the biggest nor cleverest, but the fastest. Something in his eyes always vowed to finish what an enemy started. Even if it took a lifetime and left him in ruins, he'd keep swinging his sword.

The Red Queen had slain Jøkil in combat. Decapitated him like sticking a hot knife into a slab of butter.

The new Queen— _Saya_ —lets off a war-cry that races up Tórir's spine like fire up a candle-wick. Her small fist comes down on the human's face— _whack, crack, splat_ —and he goes still.

Tórir smiles. This girl reminds him of Jøkil. The speed. The fury.

But Jøkil was a warrior whose gifts were honed by necessity. This girl seems to have been born that way.

He is ready to reveal himself to her, when Saya goes still. Quiveringly still. The red glow fades out of her eyes, dulling them from a wildcat to a wood-mouse.

Then a cry escapes her—a sick cry of dismay.

She scrambles off the fallen human. Glances around at the others, felled like saplings in a storm. Arms and legs twisted at awkward angles, eyes slack and staring. Their blood fills the rainy air with a spicy copper scent.

The Queen—just a girl now—gasps. She looks so tiny and timorous, the rain gluing her hair to her skull, leaving pale tracks on her bloodsmeared body. Tórir hears her hitched breaths, as she tries to dial down her spooked heartbeat. He smells the salt of her outrushing tears.

 _What on earth...?_

The dark sky sluices more rain, but the girl no longer burns in the downpour. She trembles. He has never known a Red Queen to tremble.

Never known her to wobble as the girl is wobbling—as if a gust of wind could knock her down.

Never known her to drop to her knees after a battle, or crawl to a corner and vomit.

Or stay there afterwards, hunched and horror-struck, weeping like a pathetic child.

 _What is wrong with her?_

Frowning, Tórir peers over the rooftop. Part of him is tempted to leap down and rouse her. The other part bristles with disdain.

Foolish, to believe she is as the Red Queen was before her. Nothing in this new world is so simple.

" _Saya_!"

He smells the zenith of the rain, its heavy thunderheads and the sparky charge of ozone. He smells the rubbish in the alleyway, some fresh and some rotting, with an undernote of piss. He smells the girl, her fading wrath still perfuming the air, a tantalizing waft like the richest brew of ale. And he smells people.

New people. Two human. One not.

"Saya—are you all right?"

They come running to the mouth of the alleyway. The not-human reaches her first. Tall and dark-suited, his body possesses the sharpness of a _skeid_ cutting through seawaters. He seems to skim across the pavement the same way: very light and swift, yet with unnerving solidity.

 _That must be the 'Chevalier.'_

 _Haji._

Quickly, he reaches the girl, kneeling beside her and taking her into his arms. They stay together, her sobbing and him silent, until the two humans catch up. A man and a woman, their heartbeats pounding with the rigor of exertion and the crackling of alarm.

"Otonashi, what the _hell_ happened here?" the woman asks.

"Holy shit!" cries the man. "Saya, are you okay?"

The girl, Saya, weeps harder. Her mouth, exactly like Tórir's, is red and misshapen. Her cream-and-honey skin, exactly like Jøkil's, is ashen where it isn't smeared with blood. Tórir can hear the frantic workings of her body, magnified tenfold, that same blood-song reaching its highest pitch.

Fear. Shame. Sadness.

The emotions are unrecognizable to him. Always have been—though as a boy he'd learnt that if you tilted your head a smidge to the right, let your eyes go big and glossy—it indicated sympathy, sincerity, softness. It was one of the many skills he'd learnt, to blend with the human crush, and later to hide in plain sight within the Queens' court.

He suspects it will come useful here. As will his other talents.

Foremost among which is patience.

This girl— _Saya_ —is a paradox. A Queen to her marrow. Yet her power is squashed beneath weakness. A tamed wildcat mewling over the same mice she is born to devour.

 _How pitiful._

Tórir's lip curls. There is more exploration to be done here. More questions that beg answering. But until he is satisfied—fully situated in this disorienting new realm—it is wiser not to reveal himself.

Wiser to bide his time, and watch, and learn.

* * *

 _Next few chapters will begin exploring Saya's state of mind - and the changes that begin to manifest in hers and Haji's relationship - in more detail. I am shamelessly abusing Gothic Horror/Gothic Romance tropes, so expect a lot of allusions (and outright demonstrations) of 'insanity' and terribly heavyhanded symbols as the fic continues._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Review pretty please!_


	10. Haunted (Part I)

_Late update is late, but an update it is! Apologies for the wait, but my schedule has become horrific again, which leaves less time/energy for fanficcing. Rather than rushing something half-assed out there, I'd prefer to take my time and craft the chapters properly so they're satisfyingly long, as y'all deserve! In the meantime your patience is appreciated, and your comments continue to be scrumptious pick-me-ups for bad days! :)_

 _CW in this chapter for violence, gore, aftermath of attempted sexual assault. Picking up where we left off after Saya's rampage in the alleyway. Apart from that, expect disturbing dreams, angst, Tórir being Tórir, general creepiness - and, as a 'light-hearted(?)' segue, the carnival of catastrophe that continues to be Kai's love/family life. (Oh, Kai...)_

 _Hope you guys enjoy! Review, pretty please! :)_

* * *

Rain and blood and sickness.

Saya's eyes are closed. But the vertigo of her senses is overwhelming. She feels each individual raindrop zigging slowly down her skin. She smells the carnage of the alleyway as a vibration of hundreds of cilia in her nostrils. She hears the inky air resonate with shouts and footsteps and downpour.

Her head pounds—how can it pound, when her body is dead-still?

"Saya! Jesus Christ! Are you okay?"

"What happened? Did those guys attack her?"

"Let's get her outta here first! Haji—c'mon. Get her up."

"Hold up, Kai! I need to check on the men!"

Saya's eyes stay closed. But she hears the back-and-forth of voices. Deidra and Kai. The former sounds wired, alert, scoping the scene for damage. The latter's words are shocked, rough. Saya knows how it must look. Her half-naked body, the blood-splatters, the fallen men. A hellish redux of the night at her highschool.

Except the only monsters are hidden beneath her skin.

"Saya. Open your eyes."

This is Haji. Quiet and calm—except there is a bruising strength in his arms encircling her. She doesn't care. The strength is a relief, because he never uses it against her. Ten times deadlier than those men, yet loyal as a wolf. Steady, sweet, safe...

She starts to cry harder, but out of love for him.

"Sssh. It's all right."

She feels herself covered. Haji's coat, folded around her like a blanket. The sensation of cloth against skin, the protection it denotes, is immediate. The fog in her mind clears; her eyes open, swimmy with tears.

Haji's face looms close to hers. A pale halo within dark tassels of hair, droplets of rain clinging to them. In his blue gaze is concern—and something darker.

"What happened?" he asks.

She shakes her head. Doesn't want to talk about it: the reek of unwanted bodies pressing in, the bloodlust that wrapped around her like a hot fist, the _crunch_ of her own fists coming down, the sharpish odor of the men's blood.

Dead—all of them dead.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm so sorry. I-I didn't mean to—I couldn't stop it—"

"Ssh. Easy, Saya." This is Kai. "You're okay. Everything's fine."

He takes her hands, squeezing the fingers that are sticky with blood. His touch is astonishingly warm, and so is he: a familiar corona of oranges and reds that radiate their own vitality, like a ray of summer sunlight.

"What happened?" he asks. "Tell me. It's okay."

She shakes her head again, lower-lip sucked between her teeth. Nausea is resurging; if she remembers the attack—theirs, hers—she might be sick.

 _I didn't mean for this to happen._

 _I didn't I didn't I didn't—_

"Call an ambulance," Haji says.

"Ambulance?" Kai's panic jumps another notch. "What—what's wrong with her? _Jesus_ , tell me they didn't—"

"No. Tried to, but no." Low. Measured. "Those men are still alive."

" _What_?"

"All four of them. The pulses are weak, but there."

The words rock Saya to a semblance of life. Her eyes snap open. She is still in Haji's arms, a safe harbor against the storm. His heartbeat fills her senses. But it is overlapped by others. Not Kai's or Dee's. It is a fainter patter. _Four-three-two-one_ : the men's lives ebbing into the rainy air.

Dee, leaning over one body, touches her fingers to the neck. "He's right. Not a corpse."

"Not yet," says Haji. To Kai, "Will you take her?"

"Huh—? Yeah. Sure."

Saya feels herself swung up into the air. Her head drops against Kai's shoulder. His jacket has a strong smell: soap, sweat, rainfall, all of it strung together with the wonderful motes of fried-food that comprise Omoro itself.

Shivering, she clings to him. Her whole body feels impossibly heavy; it is like being drunk, or worse.

Through the rain, she watches Haji make his way to Dee. Together, they check the remaining men, get them straightened. One of them stirs feebly; his groan rides the moist air.

"Kill…kill you…"

His arm, angled in a twist, scrabbles beneath his shirt. Saya hears the rustle and slide of metal on cloth. The _snick_ of a safety mechanism released. A gun materializes in his palm. An old-fashioned Ruger—a black-market souvenir so dated that it might be from the Operation Iceberg era.

The muzzle wavers in Saya's direction. Her heart skitters; Kai's arms tighten around her, his body instinctively torqueing to evade.

"Jesus _Christ_ —!"

Despite the cacophonous echo of rain, the bullet firing off is deafening.

Saya sees the Ruger go spinning out of the man's hand. Howling, he clutches at his fingers. " _Ffffffffuck_!"

Kai's M1911 pistol is only halfway out of its holster. He'd barely gotten the chance to draw it. But Dee, both hands free, had drawn hers. The Magnum—snub-nosed, unlike David's—is still faintly smoking when she stows it back in her jacket. Her eyes are dormered, her body relaxed. But her voice holds a cold edge of menace.

"Don't do that again."

The man shivers, his assent needing no voice. Beside him, his companion—the tall leader—has begun wheezing in distress.

"Help... help me..."

 _"You see anyone else around? You help us. We help you."_

Saya flinches on a wave of revulsion. Kai and Dee don't notice. But Haji does. It shows in his eyes, their pale blue darkening as they slew from Saya to the groaning man, then narrow.

"Kai?" His voice is a flatline—or illusion. "Question."

Kai's arms circle Saya tighter. "What?"

"I've forgotten. Does the average human require both kidneys?"

"No. Just the one."

"Why?" Dee asks. "Is his kidney busted?"

"No." Haji shakes his head. Perfectly calm—yet full of violent energy that is suddenly palpable. "Not yet."

Then his foot _slams_ down on the groaning man's back.

The heavy wind isn't enough to blot out the shrill " _Reeeeeeeeaaagh_!"of his scream.

* * *

Naminoue Beach

1-25-11 Wakasa

Naha, Okinawa Prefecture

900-0037

"...Is she okay?"

"Yeah. Yumi and Yuri got her to sleep."

"That's good." A watchful pause. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Tired."

"Want some coffee?"

"I'll pass."

Wearily, Kai steps into the kitchen. The villa is quiet, TV and radios shut off. The subdued glow of the hanging lamp at the island-counter casts a dim reflection on the bay window. In the monsoon wind, sago palms toss fitfully. It is still raining.

Dee sits at the table. A cup of coffee is cradled in both her hands, an unlit cigarette dangling between her fingers. Like her father—before he'd sullenly fallen into drink, then out of it—she is a teetotaler. No drugs, either. A savvy doctor-mother, and the death of a fiancé three years ago in a nightclub bathroom, his bloodstream poisoned with opiates, have left their lessons. Caffeine and nicotine are her only vices.

 _The only ones David and Julia know about, anyway._

Dragging a chair out with his foot, Kai sinks into it, his body at a deliberately far-off angle from hers. "I'm guessing the twins will stay over," he says. "Give Haji a hand with Saya."

"That's fine. My teams have concluded their search of Sakurazaka Street."

"And?"

She nixes the question with a hand-wave. "No joy. Of the human or non-human kind."

"We'll keep looking tomorrow. Until something turns up." He glances at her. "What about you? Planning to head back out there? Or go to the hospital?"

"Hospital. Mom, Dad and Ezra have already arrived. Adam's condition has stabilized."

"Great. I'll drop you off."

"Kai—"

"No buts. I'll drop you."

By habit, he plucks out the zippo from his jacket. Dee leans in and lets him light her cig, inhaling with a furtive relish. She is blond-haired and fair like David, and her brows and eyelashes are a darker shade like Julia's. Yet her features are entirely her own.

To Kai, she just looks like _Dee_.

After the war, the Silversteins had lived two blocks away from the Miyagusukus. Dee, Yumi and Yuri had been friends since toddlerhood, growing up in the same five-mile radius, playing at the same park, attending the same schools, getting into the same scraps. Like a trio of baby chicks, they'd trooped in and out of the house in a flurry of laughter, two years old, then three, four, five.

Until Julia, having completed her multidisciplinary PhD, was offered a position at Berkley. The family closed up the clinic and relocated to the States. They'd kept in touch with Kai, but more distantly as time went on, old comrades fading out of each other's' orbits. David and Julia had popped out two more kids; Ezra, then baby Adam. Dee, meanwhile, had joined the US Marine Corps, choosing not to follow in her father's footsteps. Kai had gotten news of her impressive exploits from time to time. But their paths had never crossed.

Until, like a magnetic force switching polarities, the families were flung back together. When the US Navy's war-sub was attacked by Chiropterans near Kings Bay, Kai and his team were the primary Shields dispatched to the scene. He still remembers the first glimpse of Dee, when he'd hauled her out of the wreckage: white-faced and shocky, but otherwise on sturdy lockdown. She'd clasped Kai's hands in hers, awe shining starkly in her eyes, and breathed, " _Whoa_."

 _Whoa_ about summed it up.

In 2032, David decided he'd had enough of America. He asked Julia if she was willing to return to the Ryukyus. She and the children agreed. Dee was twenty-five at the time. Tough and smart, with the vocabulary of a dock worker and the aim of a Wild West gunslinger. She'd fast-tracked through Red Shield's ranks to earn her place as a force to be reckoned with on the frontline.

Kai, then stewing over his acrimonious split with Mao, was assigned as her mentor. From the start, they'd gelled well. There was something charmingly out-of-whack about this clever, unglamorized young woman who shared his fondness for children's books and 90s rock songs despite witnessing depravity of the bloodiest sort everyday on the frontline. She could disassemble firearms at uncanny speed and navigate firefights with perfect composure, yet her entire face lit up when she enthused about deep-sea diving or frozen-custard sundaes or motorcycle drives to the cliffs. She laughed at his dumb jokes and her smoker's rasp was beautiful.

Throughout their Red Shield missions, they'd been many things to each other. Teacher and student. Comrades. Friends.

Yet the roles were complicated by a deep-down chemistry on both sides. They'd kept it to themselves, and it had kept. Out of professionalism, guilt, and above all their mutual respect for David.

Until last year, on a mission to Rio. The attraction had turned sexual there: a red-hot current that had pinwheeled out of control, and even now is spinning Kai as he tries to catch his balance.

Dee's cigarette glows orange as she takes a drag.

"You weren't kidding about Otonashi's wild streak," she mutters. "Those guys will piss blood for days."

"If they can piss at all."

" _That_ is Haji's fault." Ruefully, she exhales smoke. "I've never seen him so mad."

"I have. Once."

Dee hesitates. "The night at Red Shield's HQ...?"

"Yeah." The memory leaves a bitter aftertaste in Kai's mouth. "Once was enough."

"Hey." Dee lays a hand on his arm. "Otonashi's _fine_. Or she will be. You've said it yourself. She's gotten through worse."

"She has." Kai's shoulders lose an iota of rigidity. But his voice is flat. "That doesn't make it easier. This whole night just—"

"Sucks."

"Yeah."

Upstairs, it is quiet. Not like earlier, when he could hear Saya's sobbing, punctuated by Yumi and Yuri's murmurs. They'd peeled her out of her sodden clothes, wrapped her up in a giant towel and filled up the bathtub, before shooing him and Haji out. A two-girl taskforce Kai would've been at a loss without, and is deeply grateful for.

They've lulled Saya to sleep now. Kai can't hear their voices, and guesses they've dozed off themselves. He can't hear Haji either. But that's typical.

The Chevalier was broodingly quiet when they'd brought Saya home. Kai can't blame him. In the past, Haji was always intensely protective of Sayumi and Sayuri. Always escorting them after dark, cautioning them about never leaving their drinks unattended, their car doors unlocked, their social media too accessible. Cautioning them, too, that not all predators lurked in dim alleyways with blades hidden or fangs bared.

Maybe that's what's so challenging to Haji's composure, Kai thinks. The fact that Saya is in _his_ charge, in a way even the twins aren't. He's seen the other guy take gunfire, claws, spikes, a toppling ceiling to protect her. But the idea of more commonplace threats evidently hadn't crossed his mind.

Or Kai's.

 _God fucking dammit_.

They've been trying to keep Saya _safe_ since her accident. Safe from external threats—but also safe from _herself_. It's exactly what was so unnerving about tonight. Not the near-assault, but the reminder of Saya's destructive capacities. A destruction that _is_ Saya.

The Chiropteran Queen, as David once reminded Kai, who can't be boxed off.

"... asleep where you sit..."

Kai blinks out of his abstraction. "Huh?"

Dee frowns. "I _said_ : do you want the rest of my coffee. You're falling asleep where you sit."

"Uh—no. I'm good."

She cocks her head, seemingly undecided between suspicion and amusement. "That's the second time you've turned me down. Is it the coffee? Or the fact that _I_ made it?"

"We-ell." Kai forces a crooked smile. "Now that you mention it..."

"Asshole."

"Hey, I've tried your brew, Dee. You may like hair on your chest. But I'm good with what I've got."

She slugs him and he cringes. " _Hey_."

"Talk shit, get hit."

"Well, at least it wasn't the nose. The nose in sacred." Kai rubs his arm. An idiotic sense of machismo always compels him to act like it doesn't hurt too bad—when in fact Dee's punches are like shot-put balls at warp speed. It would be stupid to goad her further.

Then again, you should never pass up a chance for fun. Bad for the heart and all.

His wince deepens into a grimace. "I think…"

Dee glares over the rim of her cup. "What?"

"I can't… feel my arm."

"Cut the crap."

"'M serious." Gulp, gurgle. "Havin'—trouble breathing."

Wary, Dee sets the cup aside. "You'd _better_ not have a stroke."

"Whazzat?" He pushes his words out as if there's an anvil on his chest. "Can't… hear you..."

"Kai..."

He lurches dizzily in his seat.

" _Kai_!"

He falls sideways—then straightens at the last moment in a slinky-snap realignment of muscles. " _Got-cha_."

He can _see_ Dee's temper flare in the familiar flush climbing up her hairline. "You. Son. Of. A. _Bitch_."

She elbows him, _hard_ , and this time he drops in a guffawing sprawl across the tiles, half-propped against the island-counter.

"Sorry! Sorry!" He wheezes. "Just—the look on your face—"

"Gonna make you _have_ that stroke!"

"Ryukyuan men don't have strokes."

"You'll be the first!"

She swings at him again, and he catches her fist. _Too slow_ , he wants to tease. Then he becomes aware of her fingers in his—papered with calluses but amazingly fine-boned. Up close, she smells of butterscotch. Not perfume; she isn't the type. Just hand-cream from the fancy set Yuri got for her birthday last year.

Their eyes meet and the pause prolongs itself weirdly. Letting her hand go, Kai straightens. "Watch the cancer stick, Dee. Gonna burn off your fingers."

"Huh?" Dee orients on her cig, the ash dangerously long. " _Shit_."

Tapping the dregs in the kitchen sink, she stands there a moment, gazing out the window. The line of her back is taut. A tension that Kai knows is about Adam and tonight's disaster—but also about Rio, its truth expanding between them in an irreversible way that Kai struggles to negate with black humor.

He's always hated deceit of any kind. He's never had a secret—relationship? fling? thing?—such as they are having. But if he owns up to it, what will they say? David, who's been like a father to him after George's death. Yumi and Yuri, who see Deidra as a sister. And Saya, who even now makes it hard to believe thirty years have passed, whose face takes him back to a time when she was the complex center of a war, and of his every thought; even during the disaster with Mao. With every girl after, in the early days—without question.

Kai has grown up since then. Grown older, wearier. He's moved on.

But Saya's return is an unsettling reminder that the past is never gone. It's always there, acting as the hinge to every trauma and tragedy.

What if this thing with Dee proves to be both? They are on the same wavelength, but that doesn't erase their age difference. He's always derided the way men his age have stupid flings with younger girls. It's a predictable pattern: clandestine meet-ups and raunchy sex, midlife crises versus daddy issues. It'll last a month, maybe two. Then, the sex running out like a tap shut off, they'll have to turn to conversation, which dries up even faster. At which point they'll break it off: he for work/family, she for a younger man, maybe with tattoos like Vicente's or a guitar like Sachi's.

Maybe that's reducing it to its crudest components. But he has to be realistic. He couldn't bear for his friendship with Dee to crash and burn because of this mistake.

Except it doesn't feel like a mistake. It feels like a _miracle_. Their long motorcycle drives, clowning around, inside jokes, wryly exchanged-glances, all the antics of crushed-out kids—he'd never experienced even as a teenager.

She makes him happy just by _being_ —a happiness that is like coming back from the dead.

"You keep zoning out," says Dee. "What's eating you?"

"N-Nothing." He clears his throat. "Look, I'm gonna check on Saya and the twins. Then I'll take you to the hospital."

"Kai." Dee touches her knuckles to the kitchen counter, a not-quite-rap. "We should talk. To my parents, I mean."

"Dee—"

" _Or_ to each other. You've put up a giant testosteronic wall since—"

He winces. "I didn't mean to. I just—needed time to think."

"Uh huh. You. Thinking." Dee keeps her face impassive while her eyes mete out a blue wryness. But beneath that are so many other things. Sadness, hope, a prideful expectancy.

Love.

 _Don't make me ask for it_ , her face says. _Just tell me._

"Dee—"

He shuts his eyes. Shuts them tight and gathers her into a hug, his cheek pressed to her shorn hair. Her body is warm and obliging, which is odd seeing as she is so often tough, untouchable. Kai is the only one lucky enough to do this without getting his kneecaps shot off.

Then her arms pass around him, squeezing tight. His eyes burn, and he is ready spill everything on the gut-shock of emotion passing over him, because if it can't be tonight of all shitty nights, it doesn't deserve to be at all.

Then—"Kai."

They spring apart.

Haji is there, looking grave and awkward. "Red Shield called. About the men."

"Yeah?" Kai draws himself up. A youth of delinquency, two decades of balancing premature fatherhood with adult responsibilities, years of bloodshed on the frontline, a string of failed relationships, all help to keep a tight lid on his expression. But never as perfectly as Haji's. "What'd they say?"

"They will live. The organization is asking whether to contact the police."

"They _should._ " Dee puffs on her cigarette with an angry flourish. "A clobbering is no excuse to let them walk."

Haji shakes his head. "They will never be walking again."

"Oh."

Again, Kai is reminded of David's warnings: how a Queen's instincts are always in conflict with her rationality. But it's a reminder, too, that it could've been worse. If the night had ended differently, with one brutalized sibling and a ring of dead bodies, like Riku on Red Shield's ship...

Snapping back, Kai swallows. "Maybe we should hash it out ourselves? No reason to upset Saya."

"Agreed," Dee says. "She's been through enough tonight."

Haji shakes his head. "Saya's actions. Her choice."

Typical, that cold cloak of honesty. But off-putting, too. It takes Kai back to the days when Haji was a stranger. More than that: a _danger_. The guy who'd blown into their lives and ruined everything. Brought out something monstrous in Saya; turned her shadowy and secretive. She'd floated further away from the family as the days passed, then broken off completely after Riku's death.

Haji was the only one she'd kept close. _Too_ close, the two of them tangled in a codependent knot, almost as one body.

Kai admits to wondering—too often, in the war—exactly what there was between them. They were never kissy-goo-goo, but they'd always stopped talking whenever he came into the room. With Haji, Saya always appeared a little _off_ : the shades of her eyes darker, the tones of her voice quieter, her very _Saya_ -ness pared down to a blade's edge.

With Haji, she wasn't an ordinary girl. She was a warrior queen conferring with her knight.

It hadn't made Kai dislike Haji any less.

Today, he can look back on those days with wiser eyes. He understands his antipathy of Haji was off-base. The Chevalier was only fulfilling his duty, same as Saya. _Suffering_ , same as Saya, too. His remoteness wasn't a character-flaw but a defense-mechanism. Underneath, he was more soft-serve than polar icecap. A guy who watched _Xena_ reruns and liked spicy tofu recipes and had the entire _Discworld_ series in his bookshelf.

Over the years, Kai has grown to respect the Chevalier. Raising the twins together has given them something in common besides the war. Made them buddies—or is buddies-in-law the better term? There've been plenty of emergencies when Kai was grateful for a practical, patient presence: someone who didn't sulk, or talk endlessly, or burst into tears. Someone who could convey _Shit, that sucks_ with nothing but a _Hm_.

Another guy, basically.

But moments like these, the difference between him and Haji stretches into an unbridgeable gap. After all these years, the Chevalier may seem like a familiar fixture. But, like Saya, he will always be unknowable.

Dee stubs out her cigarette hastily. "It's late. I'd better get back to the hospital."

"I'll drop you," Kai says. "Let me grab my jacket."

Haji nods. No: _Thank you for coming._ No: _Let me know_ _if Adam improves._

Also typical. Gentlemanly, Kai knows, doesn't equal genial in Haji's lexicon.

But the Chevalier sees them to the door. Accepts a parting handshake from Dee, and a clap on the shoulder from Kai.

"Call if you need help with Saya," Kai says.

A redundant offer. Who understands her better than Haji? In Kai's memory are snapshots of a different Saya: bubbly and bubblegum-sweet. Not the new one (the real one?) with her disconnected smile and eyes like black-noise, whom Kai loves to pieces but no longer understands. Their lives have diverged too completely.

Not that it matters. Saya will always be _Saya_. Family, like the twins, and Dad, and Riku.

And Dee.

 _If David doesn't shoot me through the head once he finds out._

Then Haji says, "I will let you know."

Completely unexpected, the flat statement sinks like a pebble into water, ripples of surprise spreading through both Kai and Deidra. The Chevalier shuts the door without a goodbye. Yet Kai is left feeling like he's watching a man returning to a haunted house.

Someplace once familiar, but with ghosts now residing in its superstructure.

Remnants of a past not yet buried.

* * *

Saya is sweating.

Not the ordinary sweat. She is sweating in bloody gushes, like her insides are leaking through her pores.

Blood seeps from every part of her, warm and thick. It covers her skin, slicking it red. It smothers her nose, floods her eyes, her mouth. It tastes of copper—metallic, salty. She chokes on it. The blood refuses to stop flowing.

Saya opens her mouth, tries to scream. Blood gurgles from her throat. She suffocates, trying to breathe—and chokes on more blood.

God, so much blood.

Its scent, its taste, its very texture are unbearable. It is thick and hot, scalding her skin. Frantic, Saya tries to scream again. But a hand claps over her mouth, cutting the sound off. Eyes wide, Saya stares at the hand. It is covered in blood: dried and cracked, so the skin resembles a dragon's scutes.

Terrified, Saya throws the hand off. Another red-crusted hand catches her shoulder. It begins dragging her away. Saya jerks the hand off, but it grips her tighter.

" _Let me go_!" she screams, blood bubbling from her lips.

She tries to stumble away. But now other hands are everywhere. Grabbing at her shoulders, clutching her waist, her arms, her ankles. She flails wildly.

" _Let me go_!" Her sight is blurred by the thick blood in her eyes. " _No! You can't do this! Let me GO_!"

But the hands keep yanking at her. Tugging her backward.

" _No_!" Saya cries. " _Leave me alone_!"

Merciless, the hands drag her. She swoops downward, plunging through blackness, struggling against the hands with all her might.

She is struck with ice-cold water, the shock excruciating. The water gags her, blinding her eyes. Icy fluid gushes down her lungs. Saya chokes, her lungs aching—struggling to breathe. Around her, the darkness thickens. She thrashes in the water, drowning.

She has to breathe—she is going to die!

A hand catches her foot. Saya kicks it and struggles upward. Another hand catches her ankle. Her fingers clawing in desperation through the water, Saya squirms out of its grasp.

As she breaks the surface, cresting on cool air, she finds herself treading through inky ocean. The glowing halo of a red moon floats overhead; it casts ripples of metallic pinkish light in the water.

At the edges of the ocean, figures rise in plumes of smoke. Their eyes glint blue and red and they speak in a rushing susurration, every language recognizable yet inverted, the words beyond human comprehension. The sound is deafening, a juddering pressure in her eardrums, a corkscrewing coldness down her spine. Dark hands reach for her; eerie laughs wash over her.

She tries to wrest the hands away, to cover her ears. But someone grabs her up and shoves her to cold damp floor, pinning her wrists.

" _I'll kill you_!" Saya screams.

Then she sees that it is a girl. Pale, nearly sepulchral, long black hair framing her face. She recognizes Diva—and her rage and terror melt into gratitude.

" _You're alive_ ," Saya says, tears in her eyes.

She looks up at Diva, her blue gaze enclosing her in a soft bubble. " _Diva—I'm sorry for everything. Please forgive me_."

Diva smiles, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

But her hair is whitening into dry squiggles. Her face grows skeletal. The eyes are rotting, falling from their sockets. A distended black tongue lolls out from between scummy, wetly glistening teeth.

It is no longer Diva, but a fetid corpse. Its skin is grey and pruned, white larvae crawling everywhere.

Saya screams, seeing that the creature is pinning down her hands. She struggles to free herself. But the corpse leans closer, coming down on top of her. It seems animated with a crazed strength. Thick black sludge drips in a long spool from between its lips.

No—not sludge. It is a snake, swaying and hissing, its scales incandescent in the moonglow.

Hypnotized, Saya stares. The fear has sunk so deep inside her that it feels like part of her body: the bitter-blood taste in her mouth, the cold judder behind her ribcage, the hot beat against her temples.

The corpse moves closer, gripping her cheeks with both hands. When Saya realizes what it wants to do, wild adrenaline grips her. Her struggles grow frenzied.

The corpse presses its cold lips to hers.

Saya clamps her mouth shut, trying not to scream. But the pressure of the corpse's weight against hers, the bite of its skeletal fingers, the inrushing smell of its body, rank and rotten, force a gasp she can't hold in.

At once, the creature pries her lips open. The snake sinks into her mouth.

Saya releases a muffled scream of revulsion. There is pressure, friction, a sizzling line of pain: the snake has broken loose and is burrowing its way inside her.

She tries to struggle, but the snake is in her depths now, a whispering undulation. Its venom percolates her bloodstream. Nausea churns in her gut. She retches, struggling for air. But the corpse remains on top of her, a suffocating weight.

 _No. No. Stop._

 _I'm going to die._

Her body heaves as if in death-spasms. Inside her, the snake devours whatever it touches. It is like having a gaping mouth inside of her, ringed in pincer-teeth: chewing everything to pieces, inside-out.

Caught in the eye of terror, Saya feels the snake draining the blood from her veins, swallowing her lungs, her heart, her mind and other organs. The transformation is slow and excruciating; it doesn't stop until the snake has hollowed her out from within, her skin becoming a papery chrysalis, flaking and peeling, her psyche overlapping with the snake's—futile misery and hellish hunger—until she isn't sure whether the snake dwells inside her, or she inside the snake.

Only then does the corpse release her. But on its shoulders sits not the desiccated head, but a stranger's.

Red-haired and impudently handsome, his rosy lips are peeled back from his sharp white teeth—not a smile but a horrorshow leer. His mismatched eyes burn into hers.

One red. One blue.

" _I crawled out of Hell just to see you_ ," he says. _"I am here to give you a taste_."

And Saya sees grotesque shapes heaped on either side of him. Mounds of severed heads, the domes of their skulls cracked like eggshell, their eyes milky in dark sockets, faces slack in melting folds of skin. Haji. Kai. Sayumi. Sayuri. David. Julia. Dee. Joel.

Diva.

Saya stares at their dead, empty faces. Stares at the glossy marbles of their eyes.

She screams.

* * *

Saya wakes with a jerk.

Her heart beats like a tom-tom. The bedsheets are damp with her beading sweat.

 _"_ Oh God."

For a moment she isn't fully situated in time and place: sense-memory pops and crackles through her, past and present. The stormclouds draining the color out of the sky, so only black is left. Haji's cool hands on her body, his cool mouth between her thighs. An alleyway shot through with the acrid smell of blood. Diva shriveling to a corpse, a ziggurat of skulls piled behind her.

And the perplexing sight of a snake, black as an oil spill and gliding forward inch by glossy inch...

Panting, she sits up. The nightmare fades into the comforting aroma of vanilla. Like a grain of sand sliding down an hourglass, she returns to the knowledge of where she is. Haji's room, back at the seaside villa. No hissing snakes: the slow susurration is only Sayumi and Sayuri, curled up in bed with her, breathing in their sleep. Yumi's heavy head is pillowed on Saya's shoulder; Yuri has a thin arm flung across Saya's belly.

The dream is far away. So is Diva. Thousands of miles and thirty years away.

 _Saya_.

The sound creeps past her ears and her body seizes up. Fear echoes the dream's sensations: a snake twisting restlessly in her gut.

 _Saya, please…_

The voice is pure honey: sweet, and inviting. She'd heard it the night of her accident months ago, luring her from her cozy bed, and into the chilly night streets.

 _Please._

 _Come with me._

Now, as then, Saya obeys. Quietly, not daring to disturb the sleeping twins, she swings her legs off the bed. Her feet barely seem to touch the cool ochre floorboards; she almost imperceptibly floats as she walks through her room.

At the window, the stormclouds go brightly incandescent with lightning. The stained-glass mosaic is a riot of colors—aquamarine, emerald, magenta. The bruises splotching her attackers were the same colors, Saya remembers. Bruises, and broken bones, and heartbeats out of whack in a portent of doom.

The memory makes something inside her clench tight, mind and body a clammy fist.

 _Don't be afraid, Saya._

 _I'm with you._

She drifts across the floorboards, cat-soft. The voice floats past the room and through the sitting area. She follows it. No one comes out to intercept her. She can't sense Haji anywhere. Can't hear Kai, or Deidra. It is almost as if a somnolent spell has fallen across the villa.

Blinking groggily, Saya stares around the darkened space. Ahead, her bedroom door is ajar. Just a half-inch. On the other side, four slim fingers curl around the edge. She sees a sliver of a face in the gap, one big glowy-blue eye.

"Diva...?"

The name drops from her lips before she can stop it.

Laughter chimes from behind the door, impossibly sweet. Then the face and the fingers slip away.

Heart galloping, Saya rushes to her door. "Diva?"

The tinkling-crystal laughter answers her again. The kind of laughter Diva used to make when Saya would read her fairytales by Perrault and Straparola, sitting by the door of her tower.

 _This isn't possible,_ warns a voice in her head. A different voice, cool and precise. Almost like Haji's. _Diva isn't here. Your mind is playing tricks, Saya._

She knows—yet doesn't. That's the killing joke.

Diva is gone, yet she is everywhere Saya looks.

Blindly, she stumbles into her room. The bed is as she and Haji had left it, after getting the phonecall from Kai. The sheets made up with crisp precision, the corners fitted under the mattress. Haji's style, not hers. Her Chevalier's innate neatness comes through even in the way he strips and replaces the linens after lovemaking.

Glancing around, Saya tries to moor herself. At the window, the rain falls in watery brushstrokes. She hears the rustle of tossing sago palms, and the far-off sibilation of wind. Shapes—Diva-sized—seem to coalesce in every shadow, every play of light.

But they are all tricks of her imagination. Her sister is nowhere in sight.

 _You already knew that._

Scrubbing the heel of her palm against her eyes, Saya steps into her room.

And freezes.

In the gilt-framed oval mirror of her dresser, the reflection peering at her is unfamiliar. Or—no. _Too_ familiar. With her streaming dark hair and white cotton nightgown, her skin palely luminous in the shadows, she _is_ Diva. She can't see her own face, yet she can, as if her sister's spirit has filled her like the snake in the dream, coiling behind her eyes and the contours of her body, fitting as a second layer beneath her skin.

The reflection captures it perfectly: Diva and Saya, Saya and Diva, their lovely daughters asleep to the tinkling echo of rainfall...

 _Stop it,_ Saya thinks.

She doesn't understand what is wrong with her. The visions and voices, the fits of disconnection... In her most self-indulgent moments, she's told herself they are the residues of a brutal past. At her most self-censuring, she sneers at herself, loathing her own weakness.

 _It's all in your head._

 _The sooner you accept that, the better._

Deliberately, she opens her jewelry box. It is the ormolu one from the Zoo, hand-crafted and antique. The night-glow plays over the trinkets inside it. No jewelry, but the sepia picture of Diva and Joel, smudged stiffly at the edges with her blood. Nestled next to it, a heavy chunk of stone.

A piece of Diva herself.

Carefully, Saya lifts it out. The red tints within glow, moving in hypnotic flickers. She nearly smiles—not because the stone makes her glad, but because it seems the most solid part of her world. The only thing that is _real_.

 _That's because it_ is _real._

Diva is gone. She isn't here, isn't with Saya, isn't anywhere. There is no snake, no voice in the night. Saya is dreaming it all.

Except that doesn't explain why, even awoken from sleep, it feels as though the nightmare has barely begun.

In her ear, Diva croons, silky as rain: _I miss you._

Saya's throat works, achingly tight. She doesn't know when she'd begun to cry. Maybe it was all along; her face is wet, tears squeezing from the corners of her swollen eyes.

 _I know,_ she thinks.

 _I miss you too._

* * *

1 Chome Kitamae

Chatan, Nakagami District

Okinawa Prefecture 904-0117

 _I want to see her again._

Lying back in the bedroom once belonging to Ashleigh, music tinkling through the air, Tórir smiles.

He'd made sure to dispose of her body meticulously. Parts scattered across the city, so the modus operandi could not be pinpointed to a... _Chiropteran_. She'd been a good mouthful, but it was the freedom to wear her shape that Tórir was after. To have access to her memories, her car, her credit card.

Her home.

The apartment, one of the many in a low-lying, white-painted building in Nagata, suits his purpose. Shelter. Privacy. Anonymity. At the window, with its half-mangled blinds (he couldn't figure out how to work them), streams of rain splatter the glass, monochrome streaks of gray and blue.

Watching them, Tórir lets himself be lulled.

He's unprepared for the shifts this world has taken. Everything seems bigger, noisier. So many lights in the dark, so many new smells. The buildings are immense and hideous. Flat squares of concrete, tangles of wires and pipes. The roads are all black-and-white stripes, cars swooping across them with noxious spurts of fumes. The beauties of nature mean nothing to these creatures; they have papered them over with metal, concrete, plastic, sludge.

Yet the great impartial skies are as they've always been. As are the clouds darkening them, changing shape from diffuse softness to a gathering thunderstorm.

Music is as enlivening as it was in his day, too. He's found Ashleigh's collection of records by _the New Viennese Philharmonic_. The waves of music— _The Fantaisie Impromptu_ , again—spread out like the golden shades of the dawn, their tiny atoms mingling with his inhales, swirling with his exhales, until the apartment itself is alive with the warm buzz of _life_.

Tórir soaks in all these beauties, glad to be consoled.

As a boy, these were the solitary moments he'd most treasured. Elements that suited him as starkly as wind and rain and frost. He would stand by the shores in the twilight, alone, looking out at the emptiness of the blue horizon for a miracle which never came.

Until he'd seized his Wyrd by the throat and subjugated her to his will.

He'd grown up in a dingy fishing village in the Froyar. A slum-child with lice in his hair and dried shit on his feet, clinging like bilge to the docks where ships from foreign lands made port. The splendor of the Queens' court was as distant from his world as the stars.

Since the death of his father, Tórir had known only two constants: hunger and hatred.

The youngest of his brothers, he'd spent his days at the fish market, scrounging for leftovers. Sometimes, he would do odd-jobs for fishermen in exchange for a pail-full of oysters or seal innards. More frequently, kicked at and spat on by the sailors, he would creep through the dark alleys and pick their pockets when they lurched drunkenly from the taverns. At the end of the night, he and his brothers huddled together in their home, laying their winnings for their mother like stolen treasure.

And each night, she'd sigh, _It's not enough._

Not enough for a houseful of six growing boys. Not enough for the woman ostracized by the entire village—the wife of a traitor, executed by the Red Queen herself. Men spat and cursed at Tórir and his family wherever they went; others disdained to touch them with even the tips of their boots.

Not that it stopped those self-righteous cowards from paying his mother visits at night, cramming their dirty flesh into her orifices for a handful of coins. When she worked, she'd send Tórir's brother's out to play in the streets.

Only Tórir stayed behind. She would give him milk of maypop—purple passionflower—to put him to sleep while she worked. From the half- open door, Tórir would watch with groggy eyes while she let one brute take her from behind while she fellated the other. He would watch the debauchery in session, coins exchanged for acts of filth, the cries that sliced the air less manufactured _amore_ than pent-up wails of misery.

But even with his body is a drugged-out drowse, his mind would race at lightning speed.

 _There is more to our lot than this._

From daylight to midnight, he and his brothers worked tirelessly to improve their station. Ingratiating themselves with the villagers. Becoming apprentices to swordsmiths, fishermen, slavers, carpenters. Swallowing down insults, abuse, assault and answering only with smiles. Plying their trade, not as a shortcut to pay for a night's drinks, but as superlative specialties in its own right.

His eldest two brothers became swordsmen. The two after that, seafarers and slavers. The next two, merchants and cooks. And Tórir …

He became what is known as a _Skrá_. A scribe.

From his days at the port, he'd picked up different languages from the traders. Goídelc—Old Irish. Gammelnorsk—Old Norwegian. Dönsk tunga—the tongue of the Danes. By age twelve, he had developed a rare gift for translations, and a rarer talent for runes.

Then his gifts earned him a summons from the _V_ _ǫ_ _lur_.

They were the shamanesses of the village. The ones under the patronage of the Blue Queen, performing acts of magic on her behalf. He became part of their retinue, traveling the land and watching them offer spiritual advice, attend births, settle disputes, heal the sick, and bury the dead.

It was here that Tórir learnt how to unlock the secrets of men's and women's bodies. Here that he learned the double-edged nature of herbs to kill or cure. Here that he understood the importance of patience, of prevarication, of prose. And beneath that, the steeliest will and the chilliest heart necessary to transform a life of subjugation into self-sovereignty.

The Vǫlur were no benign crones. As handmaids of the Blue Queen, they were foretellers of prophecy. At night they danced to drums, went into trances and fucked whom they liked. One of them, a bright beauty of russet hair and quicksilver eyes, took a liking to Tórir—and later took him between her thighs. Afterward, at the shores of sleep, she sighed that a moment would come, on a day unheralded by fanfare or forewarning, when Tórir would be given an opportunity to not only escape his fate, but shape it to his whim.

 _Be ready for the moment,_ she said. _Be ready to spill blood. To be reborn into a higher sphere._

Be reborn.

He remembers the beam of pale moonlight falling through the narrow leaded window and upon her smile as they lay abed. And in that moment he understood what he must do. Not serendipity but the final piece of a brutal exoskeleton that would carry him toward greatness. That night—in pale arms of a Vǫlur—the course of his life was set.

He waited until she fell asleep. He waited until the world was calm and still, to slip from her bed and gather up the silky sash from her fallen gown.

Then he'd twined it around her throat and strangled her with it, as easily as snapping a sparrow's neck.

Afterward, on her special sheets of vellum, he had carved out the decree that would propel him from the Vǫlur's keep and into the Queens' court. Vouching for him and his brothers as the most suitable to be conscripted into royal service.

The _Blood Tax_. Paid in the form of future _Blodprinsen_.

Chevaliers.

The night of the initiation, Tórir was taken under the Red Queen's wing more wholly than he'd ever been between the Vǫlur's thighs. In the celebratory glow of torches she rose above him, her skin pale as a harvest moon and her eyes a slice of fire. Full of secrets, yet so open and trusting. Taking him deep, deep inside of her, hot as the blood in her exquisite veins, on her lips, down his throat.

It tasted like death. It tasted like birth.

He'd feared that she would learn about his scheme. Find him out through the secrets of his blood. Queens could foretell a man's future and glean his past with barely a bite, after all. But he needn't have worried. The Queens imbibed not the minutia of past and future misdeeds, but their emotions and after-echoes. They took the measure of a man by the purity of his heart.

And Tórir's was so vacant as to be sterile.

 _Sea air,_ the Red Queen said afterward. _You taste of nothing but the fresh sea air._

Remembering that night, Tórir smiles. But now, in his mind's eye, the Red Queen's features are evanescing, transforming into another's.

 _Saya_.

Jøkil's daughter. The Red Queen's niece.

Things aren't all bad, as long as he has her in his sightlines. He may be alone, bereft of his titles and armies. His world may have been swung upside-down, and inside-out. But he is still himself. Still has a mind curved to the wicked sharpness of a _knifr_.

It has always been the best weapon at his disposal. Never as strong as his brothers nor as swift, he'd learnt early on to coast by on a yarnstring and his wits. He still remembers himself, a shrimp of a boy on the brink of manhood, inquisitive and too clever for his own good. A fatherless pariah who'd spun colorful tales to win friends and to evade the conflicts he'd attracted. He'd learnt to bundle himself in moods and manners, the layers shrugged off and on as he saw fit. Sweetness layered over mockery, mockery worn over cunning, and under the cunning his cruelty, the truest snakeskin.

He will use every ounce of it to get close to the little Queen.

 _Saya_.

He smiles, taking himself back to the alleyway, to the drumroll of rain, the scent of blood and rotting garbage. Saya's eyes the red of magma, the black eruption of her rage. Such an aliveness to her. A _wildness_. Like a Valkyrie flung to the mortal realm.

Tórir's own Red Queen was the same. A huge presence despite her smallness: her room-filling energy, her cut-throat laughter, the imposing darkness of her eyes. In battle she was a hellion. The first to leap into the fray, chopping heads and cracking skulls, her war-cries sounding louder than thunder itself.

 _She is half Mareridt_ , the villagers would whisper, using the root-word for nightmare. _Three-quarters, at least._

A pity Saya seems only one-quarter. Stymied by emotion and remorse and foolish humanity.

 _Let us see how long that lasts._

The night passes in droplets of rain, thousands of them. Tórir does not sleep. He lays in bed, on the cool cotton sheets. Listens to the _Fantaisie Impromptu_ , over and over, his pleasure undiminished.

And he plans.

He needs a more secure location soon. He needs money and information and resources.

And one way or another, he will get them.

At dawn, he blinks and stretches. The window is misted with condensation. But sunlight glows through it, distorted, like at the end of a tunnel. He sees the small shapes of birds, hopping across the railing, their fragile feet pattering at the glass. More distantly, the rumble of engines and tires and the shrill peals of horns. The humans carrying on until their world is a mere skeleton of itself: gutted, barren, drained of the colors of life.

 _They have even contaminated the little Queen._

 _Made her less of herself, and more of them._

The irony revolts Tórir as much as it amuses him.

At the apartment door, a clink of keys. The turning of the knob.

"Ashleigh?"

A man's voice. A man stepping in. Sprawled in the bedroom, Tórir smells as much as hears him. The scent of stale cologne. The tang of disinfectant.

Instinctively, from the blood he's taken from Ashleigh, he knows it is the fiancé. The doctor. Returning from his night-shift for a shower, a sandwich and sleep.

 _He will get his sleep._

 _In a fashion._

Tórir's belly growls, and he sits up.

"Ashleigh? Babe, you awake?"

Tórir doesn't answer. The blood-thirst is upon him again, his whole body prickling with it. But more than that, this human can be of use. A doctor, a respected member of the community. With a documentation, money and means.

Wearing his skin, Tórir can go where it is bothersome—then as now—for a pretty little canary like Ashleigh to rove. This is a man's world, now more than ever before.

 _So much the better._

Making his decision, Tórir smiles.

Crossing the bedroom, he studies his own reflection in the mirror. The blue burn of his eyes. His tongue flicking out of the pink curve of his mouth, snakelike, to touch the sharpened canines. His face and body making indiscernible noises as they melt and reform, skin stretching like putty.

In the barest split-second, it is not Tórir but Ashleigh, staring into the mirror. Her voice comes clear as a bell.

"I'm in here."

"You got anything to eat? I'm starved."

"Yeah." Her smile is sharp and wintry as an icicle. "Me too."

 _But not for long._

* * *

 _Next chapter will feature a serious talk between Saya and Haji (which was kind of the 'seed' that began this fic tbh), as well as the reprieve of Saya playing catch-up with the rest of the Red Shield gang. No idea when the update will fall, but here's hoping it's toward the end of the month!)_

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Critiques and comments can forever be directed to the little review thingy below! :)_


	11. Haunted (Part II)

_Huzzah! Quite a lengthy update, but it felt safer than breaking the chapter into multiples! There's a lot going on (most of it angsty), but we're also getting into the darker underbelly of Saya's issues (more and more pronounced as the fic progresses). Also exploring the weird and wacky world of Chiropteran biology. A few concepts are filched from Blood# - the rest are my own crazy theories. Let me know how I do, as I am not a science person (...although if you have a class-action lawsuit against a doctor, I could probably represent you)._

 _Also! I've worked out an outline for the fic. Breaking it into three Acts, with a total chapter count of somewhere around 40 (more or less, depending on how it progresses). Hang on to your hats, sweet readers. It will be An Ordeal - but hopefully an enjoyable one! :)_

 _Review, pretty please! Your comments are my sweet, savory sustenance!_

* * *

At the crest of the dawn, Haji finds her in the solarium.

The sky outside is still greyed with storm-clouds. A _sing-sing_ of rainfall patters across the glass. Once in a while a flashbulb of lightning goes off, showing up each droplet like shards of melted starlight, their downpour sheeting the walls and ceiling in translucent swirls.

Inside, the greenery spools out with a misty-hazy mystery. The humid air smells heavily of roses.

Saya kneels at the flowerbed. She is still in her nightgown; its hem is smudged with soil. Half-concealed by early-blooming flowers, her shape seems almost a part of the storm, the silky rustle of water and leaves.

A beautiful feral thing—built for wild living and wilder dreams.

"Saya?"

His Queen doesn't answer. She is mulching a pot with cacao shells. Her face is dewed with sweat, long hair scraped into a sloppy braid. So intent, yet so far away, her eyes fixed on the spongelike soil yet on someplace else entirely. She doesn't react when he steps up behind her.

"Saya, are you all right?"

She exhales a vague _Mm_.

"Sayumi and Sayuri have been looking for you everywhere. What are you doing out here?"

"Just... thinking."

 _Thinking, or brooding?_ She says one, and he hears the other.

Carefully, he edges closer. "Dr. Julia called earlier. She has requested a medical exam for you in the afternoon."

"I'm not hurt, Haji."

"It is only a precaution."

"For me, or against me?"

"Saya—"

Rising, she wipes her dirt-rimmed hands on her gown. "What about those men?"

"They will live." In a matter of semantics. "Red Shield wishes to know... if you want the police involved."

He hopes she'll say _No_. Not because it will get her tangled up in paperwork, yellow tape and suspicion, but because, in Haji's lights, she'd done the right thing. Protected herself—and by proxy others. He and Saya have existed outside of time for decades. Outside, too, of human laws. Why abide by them now?

Then Saya shakes her head. "It's too late for the police. Or the hospital." She swallows. "Those men will never be okay, will they?"

Haji hesitates, his clockwork conscience at war with something beastlier, more expedient, which asks, _Does it matter?_ He makes himself retreat from the brink.

"They are alive." Gently, "You did not go berserk, Saya. You could have killed them. Yet you stayed in control."

"Control?" An exhale of disgust. "If I'd kept my head in the first place, they wouldn't be _hurt_!"

"They attacked you."

He thinks about her frantic eyes and the blood and gooseflesh on her breasts. Wishes for the hundredth time he'd been there to rescue her. Even if it meant spilling human blood, as he'd done when their carriage was attacked after the Bordeaux Sunday. He wishes he'd hurt each of those men the same way. Hurt them fatally enough to spare anyone else the abuse they'd intended for Saya.

Then Saya glances around. Her eyes are swollen and red-edged from weeping. The look wrenches at Haji. Fills him with rage at being unable to do the violence for her, at being unable to stop her from doing the violence herself. Bitterness, too, at the fact that it is already done, and that his part ought to be comforting her, holding her.

Except he fails even there.

Shamed, he whispers, "I am so sorry, Saya. That should not have happened, and not to you. I should have been there to stop it."

"It wasn't your fault."

"It _was_ my fault for letting us split up."

"Haji..."

"If those men had not set you off—"

"It wasn't them that... set me off."

"What?"

She shivers. "Just before... it... happened, I was with Dee at the Bar Junket. And I had the strangest feeling. Like there was a threat nearby, and I had to move, _fast_ , or I'd die."

"A flashback?"

"I don't know." Her breath catches. "I sensed something."

This rouses strategic as well as primal concern. "Was it a Chiropteran?"

"I thought so, at first. But—" She plays with the end of her long braid. There is a tremor in her small fingers. It disquiets him: Saya's hands are always steady as a soldier's. Even if the rest of her comes unglued, her sword-grip never wavers.

He nearly reaches out to clasp her trembling hands in his. Then Saya whispers, "It wasn't an ordinary Chiropteran."

"What?"

Tears glitter at the rims of her eyes. She squeezes them shut, as if rejecting a vision too gruesome to contemplate. "I _saw_ it. Just before those men showed up, I was alone in the alley. And I saw something. A—A phantasm, a hallucination. I have no idea. But it looked like _Diva_. It _felt_ like her."

 _Diva?_

Haji's heart skips once, sharply, before resuming its steady baseline.

"Saya... Diva is dead."

"I know that."

"But then how—"

" _I don't know_!" Her eyes open, rawly red. "All I know is what I _saw_. Like she was right there with me."

Haji hesitates. He doesn't want to write this off as overwrought nerves. Doesn't want to imagine that Saya has developed a long overdue case of _delirium tremens_ —seeing snakes darting between the shadows, hearing strange voices at the edges of her consciousness. But— _God_. What if it's true? He has known his share of veterans who whipped out their guns whenever someone banged the kitchen crockery or tread too loudly on the floorboards. And Saya has already taken more abuse than an entire battalion of soldiers.

What if this is her breaking point?

Slowly, he shakes his head. "Saya, that is impossible. You carry a remnant of Diva with you."

"Wh-what?"

"That rock. Isn't it proof enough that she is gone?"

At this, Saya's whole body trembles: a walking hair-trigger.

Decency dictates that he not interfere in her private affairs this way. And if Saya were showing more convincing signs of recovery, he'd never interfere at all.

But Saya isn't healing. She is haunted.

Quietly, he says: "This is not the first time you have seen things."

She nods, barely. "I know."

Haji hesitates again. Then, in a measured motion that is easy to see coming, reaches out to enfold her hands in his. The storm washes everything to a dreamlike blue, and he squeezes her little fingers, and marvels, _Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands._

Except he can feel the subdermal shaking of her nerves. Not a squall, but a gathering tempest.

"Do you know what sets it off?" he asks. "These—visions, lapses?"

"I don't know. It's so often lately, I've lost track."

The confession makes the hairs on his neck prickle. He has practice in smoothing his face to stone. But with Saya in his eyes, he can conceal nothing; even his voice grates with stoppered concern. "Julia... when I was on the phone with her, she mentioned a colleague in Naha. Perhaps you should schedule a few sessions with her."

"Sessions?"

"For a psychiatric evaluation."

The word drops like a stone into Saya's body. The water levels of understanding rise in her eyes, darkening them in familiar anger. "...You think I should be medicated."

"Please do not think of it that way. We only want to help you—"

She wrenches away. "Help me _how_? By poisoning my body with pills?"

"Saya—"

"What then? Electrotherapy? Water treatments? A goddamn _rest cure_?"

"Those are not done anymo—"

"But you think I _need_ something along those lines." Her fury manifests itself in tiny tremors in her shoulders and arms, in the hands that transform into fierce war-fists. "What next? Will you lock me up in a tower, too? _Oh, she's already as crazy as Diva. Might as well_ —"

"Saya— _No_."

Stricken by the accusation in her eyes, Haji catches her face between his hands. She stiffens, but doesn't struggle. Her nerves are drawn so tight; it is palpable in her entire face, the strain snapping them one by one. A few more moments, and she comes unstrung. Tears boil up in her eyes. A ragged sob breaks loose from her chest, then another, and another. Haji snatches her up before she crumples to the floor.

"Saya—"

"You want to—to lock me up—!"

"No. Not that. Never that."

"You do! I'm going unhinged. I'm scaring you. I'm scaring myself."

"Saya, no. You are fine. You always will be."

Always, because she is the strongest person he's ever known. The strongest—but also the most tormented.

Gently, he carries her to the narrow workroom that takes up one corner of the greenhouse. Here it is cool and dusty, crowded with sacks of blood-and-bonemeal and the heavy iron clutter of pruners. Settling on a wooden bench, Haji gathers her into his lap. She doesn't resist; her body is a wrung-out rag against him, her words clotted with sobs.

"I'm not fine. I'm not fine. I'm not I'm not..."

"Sssh. You think that now. But it will not always be like this. You will find your way soon. Your family and I will help you."

" _I don't need help_." It's not petulance, but near-despair. "I—I _know_ I'm crazy. I'm trying to be better. But doctors—pills—that can't _help_ —"

"Saya, you are not _'crazy'_." He feels the burn of agonized anger under his words. "There is no time-limit for when you feel like yourself again. But you need to speak to someone. It does not have to be a doctor. There are a hundred alternatives."

She hiccups, " _Isha-hanbun, Yuta-hanbun_?"

"What?"

"It's something—Dad used to say. To figure out what's ailing someone, you need to consult—both the doctor and the shaman."

Haji circles her in closer. "We can try anything you wish. Anything at all."

"What if—nothing works?"

"Saya—"

But she is still talking, her voice a wild wet smudge that matches the color of her eyes. "Time isn't the same for me as it is for regular people. Wh-what if the problem isn't how much time I've got—but the fact that I'm all _wrong_ in myself? I barely know what I am anymore. It's like everything is—flowing along. And I'm outside the tide. I-I can't explain it."

"Please try."

It is evident that she wants to. Especially if she's worked out an entire metaphor for it.

"It's just that I can't tell if—I'm getting better or worse. Some days I _feel_ better. Like I'm healing and thinking. Other times—I feel like I'm cut off from my self. My _real_ self—who was hunting Diva. I'll look around, and think, _How did this happen_? It will be a hundred-and-fifty-four years since I set her free—next Sunday."

It dispirits Haji to hear her calendaring her life from that horrific Sunday, as if nothing worthwhile existed before. "Do not think of it that way."

"What way?"

He strains for a midpoint between gentleness and firmness. "That Sunday was a single terrible day. It will not repeat itself."

"You can't know that."

"None of us can anticipate the future. But please remember. Whatever disasters have happened to you are not who you are. They will not define your life forever."

A sob bubbles out of her; negation, futility. She crosses her arms around herself, as if to force the sound back inside. The haze of misery hanging over her is nearly as powerful as the rolling stormclouds above the solarium: harsh downpour and jags of lightning. It claws at Haji. He can't focus on anything except the shape of her in his arms, her trembling and tears.

Circling her closer, he kisses her mussed hair. "Forgive me, Saya. I only want to _help_ you. I cannot stand by and let you suffer."

Stunned, she lifts her moist eyes to his. "You're not—standing by. You're where you've always been. Watching out for me."

"I fear I am not enough."

 _To keep you happy. Keep you whole._

He can't bring himself to say that. But Saya, being Saya, catches his meaning anyway.

"That's not your fault," she whispers. "You can't fix me."

"I would not presume to 'fix' you. But I wish... I could at least make it easier for you."

Sniffling, she shakes her head—not at his words so much as at him. Her tiny smile is all melting sweetness. But he can see the pain behind it. Because it's still a reflex for Saya, even with him, to force a smile than to deal with guilt of being unfixable.

"You do make it easier," she says. "Always."

 _If only it were true._

He wants, beyond anything else, for things to get better for her. But he is coming to understand that the role he occupies is precarious and complicated: a new lover's protectiveness warring with an old servant's solicitude. He wants to let her make her own choices; he wants to steady the potential shipwreck of her psyche. But what if he is the wrong man to support her in either endeavor?

As a Chevalier, he'd kept her alive, but never unhurt. As a friend, he'd kept her stable but never complete.

Saya would beg to differ, he knows. But she is hardly impartial. They've known each other so long it's impossible to judge if he's on her wavelength or if the years have tailored him to suit her needs. If a man already knows that a lady's favorite part of Bach's _Cello Suites_ are the _allemande_ , that she takes her tea with lemon and honey, how to renounce the patriarchy by handing her the steering-wheel and the checkbook, her preferred brand of toothpaste and tampons, whether _I'm fine_ means _Hold me_ or _Leave me alone_ , the exact sweetspot on her nape where she likes to be kissed, it is difficult to distinguish suitability from familiarity.

And of course he loves her. Loves her enough to deny her nothing, forgive her everything. But also enough to understand that his feelings, which expand by the hour, are outmatched by the death-wish still residing in her eyes. A death-wish that may last as long as Saya does.

What if nothing he does ever erases it?

Sighing, he squeezes her tighter; she nestles her heavy head into the crook of his neck. Tearstained and subdued now, the vast sadness having passed her like the monsoon. Except that monsoon is _inside_ her, trapped in the delicate curve of skull, spilling out without symptom or warning.

Gently, he strokes her head, her soft hair filling his palm beneath the hard crown of bone. Such a sweet skein of contradictions: fragile, sturdy, reckless, wise, selfish, selfless. The complex lynchpin of his entire existence.

"I have a favor to ask," he whispers.

"A favor?"

"Yes. But please do not be upset."

This rouses her. She lifts her eyes to his. "What?"

"You do not... have to see a doctor. Not yet. Give yourself some weeks. A month or two. And if you still feel... displaced, then your family must step in to help you."

"Help me how?"

"However you need. New schedule, new surroundings, new lifestyle." A beat. "New partners, if required."

"If you _really_ want me to go berserk, Haji, all you have to do is kiss another girl."

"I meant for you."

Disturbed, she searches his face. "Why would I do that?"

"Healing takes time. But time also... changes things." He tries to choose his words with care. To stay neutral, tender. Even if he could never stand to let her go that way. Even he knows he _would_ , if necessary, and that it would hurt like a hundred spikes to the ribcage. Worse. "One day, you might decide you have outgrown me. You might move on to someone who can make you happier."

"Is that what this is about? You want to send me off because—I'm too unhinged for you?"

Stricken, he shakes his head. "No, Saya. _Never_. You—you know that all I think of is you. How to take care of you."

"And _I_ told you that you didn't need to _take care_ of me. That we're partners."

"Partners, yes. But—"

How to explain it to her? She is so old yet so young. A bitter, life-bitten woman in some ways, an utter innocent in others. She's never lived a life that wasn't stretched beyond the extremities of suffering. Never had the chance to spread her sexual wings. Her existence has shaped itself to the unique outline of their partnership. But that doesn't mean it's meant to last forever.

It certainly doesn't mean he deserves to keep her.

He whispers: "I worry—that I'm doing wrong, always reminding you of your past. Perhaps if you were with someone new—"

He cannot finish. Saya folds herself around him and kisses him. Hard and hot, communicating her fury, her mouth saying, _You're an idiot_ , and Haji answering, _Yes, probably_ , a hundred other things passing between them without words, the hothouse flowers exhaling around them and the storm raging outside, so he can taste the earthy grit and electricity on their tongues.

They break on gasps. Their gazes meet and know one another, a private dialogue entangled in the heartbeats between their bodies.

Exclusively theirs.

"Favor denied," Saya says, "Don't bring it up again."

"But—"

"If you think I'd leave you for someone new, you're even crazier than I am."

He tries not to let this—confession? avowal?—distract him from what he means to say. "I only want to help you recover."

"You can't fix me, Haji. I've told you already." Her eyes soften. "That's not why I'm with you."

"Why then?"

She lays a hand on his chest. It is warm and familiar, transmitting a pulse as necessary as oxygen into the chambers of his heart. Reminding him, too, that he is _hers_ , before she is his, and that he couldn't let her go if he tried.

The choice to leave or stay is solely her own.

She whispers, "I'm with you because I never want to leave you. Because I can't imagine being with anyone but you. Not because you're my Chevalier—but because you're what I _want_. I think, somehow, you always have been."

"Saya—"

"No, it's true. You worry that you can't fix me. But that's not your responsibility, whatever you think." She presses closer, fitting her head under his chin. "What matters is that you give me space... to fix myself."

This stuns the words out of him. He wasn't expecting to be claimed this way, and so fiercely. But even as he gathers her in, he wonders, _What if it's not enough?_

Maybe that is the point. Maybe _Enough_ is a labor not of being, but of _becoming_.

Saya nuzzles his neck. Under her breath she begins to sing _Clair de Lune_ —"Light of the Moon"—an old lullaby from their Zoo days. Her voice, high and hauntingly sweet, takes him back to their childhood, when they'd sit together on the settee by the fireplace, and she'd lull him to sleep like a puppy in her arms.

Except he isn't a puppy. He's grown into her watchdog, silent and sharp-toothed. And he must keep her _safe_.

So let her have her space. But let it also be space divided and shared. He refuses to let her drift into despair the way she'd done in the war, carrying burdens that he'd gladly have taken on, if she'd only asked.

The time for asking is past. He's fought for her cause in a century-long war. Now it is time to fight for _her_.

 _I cannot lose her again._

* * *

The days bleed by and the rain is unchanged, so heavy that it becomes its own dimension: a gray-noise that is first unnerving, then mysteriously comforting.

Saya has no hallucinations again. But from time to time, in her dreams, the snake slides in, a deceptively commonplace figment in an otherwise nightmarish spectrum of slaughter: cracked skulls, flaming corpses, the air shot through with the reek of blood.

Sometimes she dreams of her rampage in Vietnam. Other nights, the same rampage is transposed to Okinawa, her own family dying by her sword.

She screams and screams in those dreams, until she awakes to find she isn't screaming at all, but sobbing, the pillowcase wet with her tears. Some nights she'll slip out of bed and go to Haji's room, fitting herself against his cool body until her shakes ease. Other nights, he will be right there with her, perched at the edge of the bed, his words a gentling lullaby until she drifts to sleep again.

They haven't made love since the disaster in the alleyway. She has the impression he'd like to, but is holding back: caution, consideration. She is grateful for his restraint—but not for the reasons he thinks.

She broods about the men she nearly killed. She frets over another descent into madness. She worries about Adam, his recovery slow and painstaking, a reminder of how human bodies can be altered. She wonders if his attacker was a Chiropteran—and if what she'd sensed in Sakurazaka Street was real.

But Red Shield keeps up a steady sweep around the island, to no results.

Whatever she'd sensed has faded away, like blood in the rain.

In a fortnight, the storms ease off. New sunlight washes over the villa and fills the air with silence, a pure fresh aroma almost like possibility. Saya is still morose and jittery, and though it doesn't disappear, she feels more up to her usual energy.

Since the incident, Haji's calm alertness has shaded into a new breed of hypervigilance. He accompanies her wherever she goes around the villa's thirty-mile radius. Indoors, no matter where she is, he pops his head into the room to check up on her. Most nights, he even shares her bed, folding himself around her with the possessive indolence of a cat, soothing her with palm-strokes along her spine until she drops off.

He talks to her more too, unprompted: everyday chitchat, but also communication. Showing her spots he likes to visit, or foods the twins taught him to make, or books he's found interesting. Taciturn as he is, this is astonishing. Since being brought to the Zoo, he's always occupied himself pragmatically with the moment, his past (four-fifths of his self?) locked so tightly into a box as to be forgotten entirely.

But now, bit-by-bit, he is sharing with her intimacies that Saya senses are from his deepest recesses, twilight mysteries of a mind that he's protected by long habit. It is an interesting mind: half-logical, half-intuitive, with the meticulous creativity of a child prodigy and the shrewd expedience of a child soldier. He has a secret gift for picking locks and people's pockets. He has a fondness for Fibonacci sequences, and intricate pocketknives, and peppers in a colorful spectrum of spiciness.

Most days, Saya will listen to him talk, like hearing a melody unfurl from an instrument she's rediscovered after long neglect. In the war, they've had small-talk and big-talk. But never full-on disclosures. Most of their exchanges were the private language of old marrieds as much as mistress and servant: good-mornings, goodnights, strategy, swords, sleep. Or lately, the low-key charms of flirtation: shades of old camaraderie woven into the pure joy of play.

She supposes the deeper intimacy is something you grow into. Like learning a different dialect.

She tries to meet him halfway. But she can't yet open up about her dreams.

Or about Diva.

Fortunately, Haji is ready to let her work through it... not in her own space, exactly... but at her own pace.

Each evening, he shadows her diligently as she walks the city, re-learning its lineaments. The scale of Naha has expanded crazily since her Long Sleep. The crowds overwhelm her sometimes. The technology, inside and outside, is a shock to the system. There are days when she finds herself in her old schoolgirl haunts, the shapes and scents all wrong. Other days when she can't find anything familiar at all, and her mind buzzes with restlessness.

Okinawa has changed. Time exerts its flow in the cracks across the sidewalks, in some buildings gone like rotted teeth and others sprung up like columns in a bar graph. Her family has changed with it: at once bigger and narrower.

She doesn't comprehend the extent of it, until Adam is discharged from the hospital, and everyone gets together a week later for an impromptu dinner at Omoro.

"That's Monique," David says, flicking through pictures on his phone. "The girl who used to live with Gray. You remember Gray, right?"

Saya nods, and he continues, "After Gray passed, she started a career in social work. She and her wife run their own foundation now. Shelters for kids in conflict-zones. Her top doctor is Nahabi. You won't believe it. But the kid's become a pediatrician. The AAP recently gave him the Nutrition Award for his research."

"Really? What about—?" What was the birthday-girl's name? The cute one Saya gave the teddybear to? "What about Javier?"

"Javier... Let me think. She became a Shield after her twenty-first birthday. Her unit is in Special Tactics. Last I heard, they'd been posted to South Sudan."

"I...I see."

"You should meet her when she gets back. Nice girl. Strong as hell. She single-handedly beat Ezra last time at arm-wrestling."

" _Dad_ ," Ezra hisses.

"Ezra's always been more of a scholar," Julia pacifies. "More into test-tubes than triathlons."

"Test-tubes, huh?" Dee pretends to muse. "I knew there was a reason his head was shaped funny."

"Deidra. Please."

"That—or he spawned from a petri dish. Like bacteria. That'd explain the smell."

"Says the woman who recycles her socks for a week straight," Ezra mutters. "Is that how you kill Chiropterans? A whiff of Athlete's foot?"

"Ah, screw you," Dee says amiably.

"No fighting, you two."

David's tone is good-naturedly rote: he seems accustomed to the bickering. Omoro's mood-lighting turns his eyes into the blue of acai berries, the skin around them radiating lines of age. He's lived in Okinawa long enough to acquire a deep tan; his brightly-patterned _kariyushi_ shirt is the color of Jell-O shots and his sun-bleached white hair is clipped short in a style that is more surfer than soldier.

Yet his quintessence remains unchanged. The tensile strength of pure steel.

Perched next to Saya on the bar-stool, he thumbs through a collection of snaps. Places traveled, people met, old faces cycling in between the new.

Julia sits adjacent to him, long legs crossed, sipping from the straw of her drink. Like David, she's aged gracefully. Her hair is a different shade, more champagne than honey. Her white linen dress, set off by her suntanned skin, gives her a bronze goddess vibe; Aphrodite matured into Athena.

"Be sure to tell Saya about Lulu, and how well she's doing," she says to David.

Saya's eyes widen. "Lulu?"

David nods. "Julia worked hard to develop a cure for the Thorn. Ten years after your Sleep, she created an anti-serum." He glances at his wife, his features softening with rueful pride. "After four weeks of barely sleeping, and living only on coffee and cigarettes."

"Those were the days when I could get away with it," Julia sighs. "But it was worth it. Lulu was able to walk in sunlight, and have a normal life."

"Lewis adopted her a year afterward," David tells Saya. "They work together in information brokerage. Right now they're in Shanghai."

He swipes through his screen until he finds a good photo. Lulu and Lewis, toasting multicolored cocktails on a terrace overlooking the sunny cityscape. The little Schiff has matured to her late teens in appearance. Her hair is still neon-purple, but she's shed her old resemblance to a baby fruit-bat, and grown into those outsized ears and eyes.

Hugged up with Lewis—who is virtually unchanged in bulk or the brightness of his grin—she is all tipsy exuberance.

Tracing her fingertips across the screen, Saya smiles, "She looks so happy. Her and Lewis both."

"You should visit them," Ezra says. A geeky-gangly version of David, but with his mother's mild grey eyes, he keeps slinking shy looks Saya's way. Despite reading Joel's Diary (maybe because of it?) he seems quite taken with her. "You'd like Shanghai, Otonashi-san. Fast-paced, but lots of spots to relax too. Gardens, museums, and great tea-gardens where you can Zen out. I could show you in the spring if you want."

" _Oooooh_. Are you asking her on a date?" Dee sniggers. "Bold play, Ezzy. And Haji only twenty feet away."

Ezra jitters into redness. "That's not what I meant!"

"I'm impressed. Years of my questioning your manly prowess, and you go for the deadliest woman in Red Shield."

"I was only _suggesting_ —"

"Oh, look," Julia says pleasantly. "Vicente and Sachi are playing a different kind of Shanghai."

Their table glances around. At the corner of the cozily-darkened pub, Yumi, Yuri and their Chevaliers are treating Adam to a game of darts. The teenager is a bulkier version of David, his tall body roped with thick muscle. His face is David's too, but more jockish: blond hair shorn in a buzz-cut, forehead peppered with acne. At his throat is a swaddling of white gauze.

Heavy stitches are his only souvenirs from the attack at the Bar Junket. Fortunate—except he's retained no memories of the night, either.

 _"Who did this to you?"_ Saya asked him, after he awoke at the hospital. _"Do you remember?"_

 _"I dunno,"_ he croaked. _"I just remember taking a pi—taking a leak in the back-alley. Then everything went black."_

 _"What about your friends? Did they see anyone?"_

 _"Not so you'd notice."_ A grimace of embarrassment. _"We were pretty plastered."_

Not plastered now. Adam sips from his bottle of _shikuwasa_ juice—the zestiest drink he's been allowed. Like the others, his eyes are fixed on the two players dueling at the dartboard.

Sachi and V have accrued the highest scores. Now they are vying for first place. It starts off playful, then grows serious: a clash of immovable object versus irresistible force. Sachi takes his turn with a cool eye and a sharpshooter's grace; a flick of his wrist landing his dart right where he wants it. Vicente tosses his own like a grenade across enemy lines: blunt accuracy that carries both fanfare and focus.

One by one they fling their darts, each hitting the numbers in play. Each one earning exactly the same points, the scores rising higher and higher. The final throw is a triple; if either of them misses, he loses the game.

Smiling, Saya watches Sayumi and Sayuri cheer like punters at a horse race.

"C'mon, Sachi! Don't let your guard down!"

"Slaughter him, V!"

David shakes his head. "Figures they'd enjoy a match between their Chevaliers. Those girls are competitive about everything under the sun."

"It's a peacock display, David," Julia says. "The boys are proving themselves to the Queens as much as to each other."

"Queens, plural?"

Julia hums. The familiar sound of a scientist whose intellectual curiosity is engaged as much as her womanly wisdom. "They'll be of age soon. It's only a matter of time."

 _A matter of time until what?_ Saya wonders—then feels foolish. Babies. Of course. Cross-fertilization between the girls and their Chevaliers is the only way to start families. Everyone in the room knows that.

Saya's own chance has come and gone. _Thank God for that_. Diva's Chevaliers were as crazy as she was. They'd all wanted her dead—except poor Solomon. Any children sired by them would've been war-babies, conceived by force and for ill-gotten gain.

It is different for Sayumi and Sayuri. With them, Saya can't convince herself it is wrong. It just seems natural. Like sharing resources.

Like surviving.

"How does it work?" she asks Julia. "Why do we—why do Queens only conceive with their sister's Chevalier? I could never figure it out."

This gets Julia's musing attention. "Honestly, Saya, there's a lot we still haven't learned. But from the data we've gathered, it's clear there's an elaborate biochemical mechanism at play. A way to avoid homozygous mutation."

"That's inbreeding in simple terms," Ezra supplies helpfully.

"Right," Julia smiles, but then the smile fades. "But it's not as straightforward as that. After all, one would think, as Chevaliers of twin sisters, there would be similar genes across the board, allowing any recessive abnormalities to be passed on more easily and expressed more visibly in their offspring. But that's not the case with Chiropteran Queens."

Saya frowns. "What do you mean?"

Julia doles out a maternal glance to Ezra, who excitedly takes up the explanation, "Our team made a breakthrough, two years before your Awakening, Otonashi-san. We discovered that, despite being twins, the chromosome counts of Queens and their respective Chevaliers do _not_ match evenly! Or rather, the number is the same. But not every gene is in order." He smiles, "The Blue Queen's genetics are subtly different from the red's. As a result, when they mate with each other's Chevaliers, they're not inbreeding so much as _inter_ breeding. The Chevaliers of the Red Queens carry an allele we've termed the _S-factor_. Er, _S-for-Saya_ —if you don't mind?"

She shakes her head, and he continues. "The Blue Queens' Chevaliers carry their own alleles. Ones we've dubbed the _D-factor_. For successful conception to occur, both these alleles must be present. It's why Queens always have twin girls, not boys. As with other species that interbreed, it's the females who are typically fertile. This is necessary for them to go on and have viable offspring of their own."

Julia adds, "Honestly, it's a fascinating look at evolution's tool kit. It's evident that Queens at one point were able to reproduce with their own Chevaliers. But, over time, their offspring may have suffered from inbreeding depression. These come in many forms: diminishing fitness, loss of immune system function, elevated risk of recessive genetic disorders..."

"So now something in the Queens' bodies impedes it," Ezra finishes. "A method of Cryptic Female Choice."

Saya frowns bemusedly between Ezra and Julia. "What?"

David nearly smiles around a sip of his drink. "You both are so damn pedantic."

"Occupational hazard," Julia sighs. To Saya: "At its best, CFC is a female using physical or chemical mechanisms to control which male fertilizes her eggs. This can occur pre-or-post copulation. In Chiropteran Queens, we've observed it in the way they conceive. Contrary to belief, Queens do not become pregnant right away. Instead, their bodies delay fertilization by storing the seed in a reproductive tract in their bodies. That's why they don't begin showing signs of pregnancy until the year is out."

The statement tugs at memories of Riku and Diva—a trauma whose roots can never entirely be ripped out. With effort, Saya asks, "Why do their bodies delay it?"

"Our best bet is evolutionary pragmatism, " Julia says. "Queens may have avoided birthing in dangerous times. Like long winters. It's also possible they mated with _multiple_ Chevaliers. Theirs, and their sister's. So this mechanism maximized reproductive benefits. A Queen could reject her Chevalier's seed—while retaining her sister's Chevalier's."

"It also makes evolutionary sense," Ezra adds. "Genetic diversity is necessary for the continued growth of a species. Given that Chiropteran Queens have blood that is toxic to one another, this mating strategy may have developed as a means of establishing cohesion between both units. Pragmatic capital-sharing. It also means that they'd _have_ to create new Chevaliers, thus ensuring that more Queens were born."

Saya shakes her head. "If it's such a clever strategy... why aren't there more of us? Where did the rest of the Queens go?"

Ezra droops. " _That_ , we're not sure of. There's a possibility that external factors—weather, famine—reduced the mating groups of Queens to small numbers. Maybe they became endangered and went extinct. Or maybe..."

"Yes?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "Maybe they became embroiled in warfare. Not too different from your war with Diva. Maybe they died of inter-fighting as much as any population bottleneck."

Saya's heart beats with a sick, self-flagellant force. "I—"

Across the room, shrieks ring out.

"God- _fucking_ -dammit, V!"

"Sachi! Oh _nooooo_!"

Both Sachi and V have missed their targets. Cooing in comfort, Yuri twines around Sachi. Yumi slugs V, berating him as if he's missed an easy catch dangling right before his eyes.

David shoots Julia a dry glance. "Sometimes pity works as well as peacock displays."

"Mmm." Julia's smile is half-sweet, half-saucy. "Reminds me of our courtship."

"Mom. Dad." Dee cringes. "Please stop flirting."

 _Thwock. Thwock. Thwock._

Three darts fly at the board. One lands in the single, the second in the triple, the third in the double. _Shanghai_ in one inning.

Saya glances with the others to where Haji has entered, soundless as smoke risen up from the ground. He doesn't smile. But he has an oblique way of showing amusement in his eyes while his face remains aloof and unconcerned.

"Dinner is ready," he says.

"And the table won't set itself!" Kai gripes from the kitchen. "Yumi. Yuri. Get over here. And bring those Stormtroopers with you!"

"Why Stormtroopers?" Dee wonders.

"Because they can't aim to save their lives," Ezra snarks, happy to finally get a dig in. "Jeez, Dee. Brush up on some pop culture between firefights."

"You're such a dork, Ezra."

"Better than a dumbass."

"I'm not the one macking on Otonashi."

"I _wasn't_ —"

Saya smiles, the voices a comforting wash-in, wash-out. New faces mixing with old ones, the golden lamplight and kitcheny noises melting together to stir up a different era. Sitting in the same spot she'd occupied years ago with her family, she can almost hear George and Riku's laughter in her ear...

Her cell phone rings as the others begin moving to the wide dining table. An unfamiliar number. The area code says _Paris, France_. She answers warily.

"...Hello?"

"Miss Otonashi." Joel's sonorous voice is unchanged by time. "Saya."

"Sir!"

Across the room, the others glance at her. She mouths _Joel_ , and there are widespread smiles. She guesses that Joel keeps in frequent touch with them. But why wouldn't he? As much as any of them are older, different, distant, the war has made them into a family.

Including Saya—no matter how daunting the difference of thirty years seems.

"I received a message from my secretary," says Joel. "You'd placed inquiries about my health."

"I-I did." There is a twinge of guilt. She'd forgotten about her message not long after sending it. Life was caught up in an upswing of craziness. "Haji told me... you hadn't been well."

"Oh. It's not as bad as they've made it sound," Joel says. "CVD is part and parcel of my age." _And condition,_ she thinks, the guilt burrowing deeper into her ribcage. "However, the doctors say I should make a full recovery after my surgery."

"I-I'm glad to hear that. Red Shield wouldn't be the same without you."

"Me?" He laughs, that charming, sophisticated laugh. "Without _you_ , Saya. You are the foundation upon which Red Shield rests. Please do not forget that."

 _Some days I wish I could._

"How have you been?" Joel asks then.

"I'm—" _Adrift. Disoriented. Happy one moment, sad the next. Wondering where I go from here._ "I'm fine."

"Mm. And keeping eloquently to words of one syllable."

It is gentle, but she recognizes the tease. Her half-smile becomes a full one. "I _am_ fine. Just re-orienting myself."

"Well. Perhaps soon you will have time to visit Bordeaux. We have renovated the Zoo."

"The Zoo?"

"Yes. It was left in ruins, as you know. To serve as a reminder of that tragic Sunday. But with our mission completed, it was time for a face-lift."

"A face-lift?" She isn't sure how to take that. "Are you, um, living there now?"

"Oh no. But every weary traveler does." A wry pause. "It's been converted to a hotel."

"A _hotel_?"

"Yes. The original château was largely intact. So we restored it. It now has an outdoor swimming pool, a spa center and soundproofed accommodations. Not to mention free Wi-Fi." He chuckles. "The first Joel is probably rolling in his grave. But I felt it necessary to move on. Air out old ghosts, so to speak."

"Mm." Saya swallows. If only it other ghosts were as easy to dispel. "Is it, um, very busy this time of year?"

"Rather. We attract an international crowd. But quality-wise, we're only four-star. There's a rat problem that refuses to go away."

This surprises a giggle out of her. "It was like that before, too. The rats get in from the vineyard."

"Ah yes. Speaking of which. We've had excellent wines this year. I promise to ship you a crate."

"Oh! Th-there's no need—"

"You have my word it isn't contaminated. Like, say, Chateau Duel." There is a playful fizz in his tone, like Chardonnay uncorked. _Ouch_ , she thinks, and giggles again. "It is running joke with my family," Joel adds. "My grandchildren find it horrifying, given that Cinq Flèches' old winery is in such close quarters to ours."

"Your _grand_ children?"

"Oh yes! Three of them. From my own two daughters, no less."

"I'm ... surprised."

"I imagine most people are. Especially considering they were begotten the, er, usual way. Rare, but not improbable, I assure you. Franz was first. Emile and Alice soon followed. My Célia is rather a spitfire—but she is a wonderful mother."

His words well up warmly in her ear, full of pride. She smiles, sinking down from her dislocation to inhabit the wistful happiness that is coming to define her life lately. "I'm happy. That the Goldschmidt line is running strong."

"I pray it does so, as long as you live, Saya."

She doesn't know what to say to that.

"I've told the children so much about you," Joel continues. "You're the family mascot, of sorts."

Not the skeleton in the closet? The madwoman in the attic?

 _No_ , Diva says in her ear.

 _That was me._

"I hope you will meet them soon," Joel says. "None of us would be here if not for your courage."

" _Our_ courage," she corrects quietly. "We all made it possible."

"But none more than you. Do not forget that." She can almost see the solemn kindness of his expression. She can even picture his desk in Red Shield's ship, the papers piled next to the cut-crystal decanter. The image is burned permanently in her mind, the snapshot of a place and time that is no more. "Do not forget, either, that you owe yourself the happiness you've earned. All the joys you were deprived of, during your war with Diva."

"Mm."

Her heartbeat only falters once. But across the room, Haji's head snaps up. The others have already settled around the table in a haphazard, cheerful fashion. They are passing around mismatched silverware and steaming plates piled high with _champuru_.

Only Haji stays at the sidelines: leaning against the wall bearing the family's _Hinukan_ shrine. He's tied his hair back, to keep it from swinging into his face while helping Kai in the kitchen. The austere aspect, a replica of the war, is the same as his quietly assessing gaze. _Are you all right?_

She manages a smile. _Just fine._

In her ear, Joel murmurs, "I imagine—no, pardon me, I _cannot_ imagine—how jarring it must be for you. To awaken to something so different. But with time, I hope this peaceful future will become your cherished present."

"I hope so too."

 _It's just the 'becoming' that's hard._

"Please don't worry. Your wonderful family will ease the transition. Haji. Kai. Your nieces. Do give my love to Sayumi and Sayuri. Since my ...lapse, I have not seen them in almost a year." He pauses, as if cognizant of the conversation growing too heavy. His tone lightens. "In the early days, my wife and I would fly to Okinawa to stay at your villa. We made a few renovations along the way. The solarium, specifically. Call it a 'Welcome Home' present for you."

Gratitude surges. She finds a better smile for him, though Joel can't see it. "It's perfect. All of it. I can't thank you enough. For everything you and Red Shield have done for me. Every step of the way."

"We are, and always will be your shield, Saya. Now, if need be, we will also be your shelter." The phone connection is so clear that she can hear the muted swallow of his throat. Fondness concealed beneath the trademark Goldschmidt equanimity. "You must visit France after my surgery. You must come to Bordeaux. We cordon off certain wings of the manor for exclusive Red Shield use. Our best room is the Soliel Suite. Top-ranking Shields often stay there."

"Oh—I-I couldn't possibly—"

"Please. Think of it as a perk. One of the few for a lifetime of sacrifice. Hopefully while you are there, we can take a turn through the Zoo's grounds together."

"I look forward to it." She hesitates. "Is, um—"

"Yes?"

"Is Diva's tower still there?"

There is a moment of static. Then Joel says, "Funny you should mention it. I wanted to discuss that."

"Discuss what?"

"Demolishing the tower. It's off-limits at the moment. The whole thing is crumbling to pieces. It looks positively _haunted_. Célia calls it a Gothic nightmare."

Something stumbles in Saya's chest. She doesn't want to think of Diva's tower. Yet it rises up in her memory as if conjured by Joel's words—a fairytale ruin that is half-splendor, half-gloom. It is imprinted with Diva's essence, the same way Saya is. If Red Shield had demolished it, thirty years ago, she wouldn't have lifted a finger in opposition.

But now...

"Maybe, um, hold off on it? Until—"

"Until you've had a think?" Joel offers, incisively kind as always.

"Mm."

"Very well. I will table the groundskeeper's request. Until you see it in person."

"Th-thank you."

"Not at all. The Zoo is your heritage as much as mine. Hopefully, when we meet, we can also discuss—" He hesitates. "Succession must be decided soon, Saya. My son Franz is next in line. But I fear he may not be cut out for how ruthless _The Family Business_ is. I have another candidate, in case Franz declines. A brilliant younger cousin named August. Should Red Shield's board disagree..."

"Why would they disagree?"

"August is, how shall I put it? Unconventional. At least by the board's standards. Many would prefer to see their own picks leading Red Shield." He exhales. "It has been thirty long years, Saya. It saddens me that many of my cohorts have forgotten the dangers of the war. They've grown complacent, and callous. But if their egos begin eclipsing the mission, all hope is lost."

"You've kept them in line so far," she says. "Red Shield will be fine as long as you are."

"I try my best. And will continue to. But once I am gone... I hope you will support August. Offer guidance, and strength. It is what Red Shield needs."

The stumbling in her chest becomes a pinwheel: erratic and queasy-making. "Sir, please don't talk that way."

"What way?"

"Like you're already in the past-tense. You'll be fine. Your doctors said so themselves." _Right?_ she nearly asks.

"Yes. Yes, of course." He clears his throat. "Simply planning ahead. Time can be our enemy, or our ally. But it remains the one force we have no dominion over. You understand, of course."

"I... I do."

"We will speak again, Saya. Hopefully in person. Give my regards to your family until then."

"Mm."

They say their goodbyes. Stowing away her phone, Saya is left vaguely unsettled. Her memory summons another time, another place, a different Joel measuring the shadow of his mortality to a pocketwatch's ticking cadence...

Forcibly, she tries to banish the feeling. Yet it clings to her skin, a strangeness she can't shake off.

 _You can't forget everything that easily,_ Diva whispers in her ear.

Behind her, at the dining table, her family have begun heaping food into their plates. Kai, clinking a spoon against his glass like a dinner bell, calls out, "Yo Saya! Get a move on. My bones are turning to dust!"

She jerks. "S-Sorry! I was just—catching up with Joel." Pitching her voice to the entire table: "He, um, says hello to everyone!"

"Hello back," Kai grumbles. "I'll call him later tonight. Now are you eating or what?"

"Be right there!"

Hurrying to the enclosed utility sink, she splashes her face with cold water. Staring at the mirror, she almost expects to see Diva smiling back at her. But, pale and haunted, she sees only herself.

 _I need to snap out of it,_ she thinks.

 _For Haji. For Kai and the girls and everyone._

She would be well on her way if she knew _how._

A cool touch on her arm. She swivels to find Haji leaning over her.

"Are you all right?"

He always asks her that lately. Always orbiting her like a satellite, tuned in to every change in her internal atmosphere. She's coming to understand that—paramour or Chevalier—this is how he shows his love. The love of a practical, protective man with one straightforward goal: to keep her alive.

Then his palm cups her elbow, sliding down until their wrists align, fingers twining together. Familiar touch, unfamiliar gesture—respect wedded to intimacy.

All at once, something in Saya relaxes and it is just _good_. Good to be here, in Omoro, with Haji's fingers meshed with hers, her family waiting at the table heaped with piping-hot food, and the Okinawan dusk slipping into nightfall.

Good to be safe, and alive, and _home_.

"I-I'm fine," she manages. "I just—"

Her breath hitches when Haji long-arms the door to the space shut with a quiet _click_. His other hand, knotted with hers, lures her closer. In the room's sulfurous light, his skin is the smooth white of peppermint, the eyes like licks of blue phosphorescence under heavy lids. Their colors twist something through her, and when he skims his knuckles along her jawline, palming her face, she melts into the touch without hesitation.

"Saya…"

It is the prelude to a sentence. But his tone changes halfway from tentative to tender. Her lashes flutter as he slides both cool hands up to cup her face, thumbs stroking the temples—a flirting caress, a grounding into stillness.

Then he kisses her.

His mouth is cool on hers. But the touch is hot, electrified, exquisite. She gasps, and he times it to a furl of his tongue, eating up her breath, flaring dormant nerves to life. It shocks her. Without sense, she presses closer, as if trying to climb his body. His arms encircle her tighter, the sixty-watt bulb flickering above, their breaths sawing in the silence. The kiss goes on until it loosens her mind and the rest of her muscles, a languorous heat that seeps in like drunkenness. She slurs little love notes into his mouth.

Unexpectedly, he eases away.

"Ha-Haji—"

She teeters in his arms. Her body burns with a shockiness like coming awake. She is shaking in places: lips, fingers, elbows, knees.

"What—" She jitters out a breath. "What was that for?"

Haji strokes her hair. His features are smooth as a Sphynx. But his pupils are dilated, the cheekbones pinked with heat. Tiny tells of desire that only Saya can read.

"That was overdue," he whispers.

"Overdue?"

"I promised myself, when we began, that I would kiss you at least once each day… if not more. It occurs to me I have not kept that promise."

"I…"

Saya is aware of her slowing heartbeat. Vertigo—the aftermath of pleasure—still pulses through her blood.

He detaches, gently. His look is hard to parse: half-longing, half-concern. "I will not apologize for kissing you. But I will for startling you. I meant to see if you were all right. Not to—"

"Get sidetracked?" She smiles, an unsteady epiphany. "Maybe … it's just as well that you did."

Outside, Kai's voice clamors: " _Saya? Haji?_ _Where are you guys_ _at_?"

Haji glances away with patent guilt, as if remembering their surroundings. When he speaks, it is quietly courteous. "You should join the others for dinner."

"Mm." She smooths her dress down. The tension inside her, a needle climbing to red, has diffused. In its place is something else—a shimmery tactile spark. She is lit up inside, in a way she hasn't been since…

"Haji?"

"Hm?"

Going up on tiptoe, she takes his face in both hands to kiss him again. He shivers, and opens for her with a little sigh. The kiss is short, but gratifyingly sweet. When it breaks, she stays close, warming his cool lips with hers. Her pulse wavers, but for once the effort isn't in repressing the agitation of the past weeks.

"I think you're right," she whispers.

"What?"

"It _was_ overdue. Like... a lot of other stuff."

"Saya—"

"Ssh." She lifts a fingertip to his mouth. Then it becomes a caress, her thumb gently traversing his lower-lip. "We'll talk about it later."

 _At the villa_.

Haji's eyes are soft with affection on hers. Gazing into them, something steadies inside her, an off-kilter globe sliding on its axis to spin again. And while Saya has that, she isn't afraid. Not of the dark specters of the past ... or the darker shadows of strangeness trapped within.

Creeping like a blood moon over a rising tide.

* * *

 _Next chapter: smut._

 _Also Tórir stirring up shit._

 _In that order._

 _Saya will probably meet him by chapter 14 or so, but the **real** disaster won't hit until nearabout chapter 22. Hope you guys are enjoying the fic so far - and please let me know if there's aspects that could be tweaked/improved. Your feedback means a lot to me! :) _


	12. Tower

_Behold~! Smut~!_

 _Not the only thing that happens in the chapter, of course (we also get more insight into Tórir's history, and bits and pieces of Ye Olde Chiropteran society), but y'all are due some fluffiness between our brave heroes - even if it is angsty fluff. Also there is some gory imagery later, so watch out!_

 _Hope you enjoy! As ever, your feedback powers this story forward, and I'm always open to suggestions on how it could be improved!_

 _Review, pretty please! :)_

* * *

There is no rolling blackout tonight. But Saya has lit tea-candles in her room again.

She sits at her dressing table, combing her hair to a high shine. The brush is from her Zoo things—ivory-backed and ornate, the horsehair bristles as pliant as in their heyday. The table's surface is crowded with similar belongings, old and new. The ormolu jewelry box. A collection of silver haircombs with porcelain flowers. Exquisite glass bottles of perfumes in pink, gold, blue. A sleek folding Hideaway knife that Haji gave her after the attack at Sakurazaka Street.

Arranging everything around her, Saya experiences a strange sense of memories overlapping, her different selves sliding against each other like photographs fallen from an album…

Then Haji knocks at her door—polite but no longer tentative. "Saya?"

"Oh! C-Come in."

She's begun expecting him at this hour. Usually she is already folded under the covers in her pajamas, a book muzzily cradled in her lap. Other nights she is jittery and wired, needing the cool enclosure of his arms to sail her out to the shores of sleep.

Sleep isn't on the agenda tonight.

She smiles when Haji slips up behind her. With clockwork courtesy, he takes the brush from her hands. His cool fingers work her hair into a loose plait. "You should be in bed, Saya."

"I'm not tired yet."

"You have been yawning all evening."

"All right, Haji. I'll sleep soon." She turns to face him. "But one thing first."

"One thing?"

She goes on tiptoe and kisses him.

In the candle-glow, her Chevalier gives off a disconcerted heat, pouring it into her open palms. She hopes he isn't having second thoughts. She wants to recapture that sweetness they'd been spinning between them at Omoro. Longs for it to break the tension inside her, the way a thunderstorm breaks a heat wave.

But when her tongue probes the seam of his mouth, Haji stiffens. She hears his shaky little breaths; he keeps their kisses going only with his lips.

"Saya," he whispers. "You do not have to do this."

"Ssh. I want to."

"For myself? Or for you?" He traces a cool finger along the strap of her tank-top, from her shoulderblade down to her breastbone, feeling her vibrating pulse. "When I kissed you earlier… it was not to pressure you this way."

"You didn't pressure me."

"Saya—"

"C'mon, Haji. Gift horse. Mouth." She gives him a shy, sidelong smile. "I was planning to give you mine."

That shuts him up.

She undresses in the flickering golden glow. Watches Haji's face soften in that lovely, near-imperceptible way, his gaze drifting over her in a languid hungry wandering.

 _Oh_.

Her body's response catches her off-guard—pulse leaping, legs gone light. She still isn't used to it. Feeling good, asking for good things. The attack in Sakurazaka Street had made it worse. Confronted by her own monstrousness, she'd tried again to deny the longing in herself.

But with Haji, it will never go away.

He makes no objections when she spills him back across the bed. Never takes his eyes from her as she climbs across his body, tugging off his clothes. Wrapped up in those dark suits, he is always so impeccably soigné, fit for a waltz more than a tumble in the hay. But nude, the long smooth shape of him takes on a lupine allure that makes her breath catch.

She takes charge, giving him no choice in the matter. Listens to his breaths judder into gasps as she kisses down his body, and then, when she finally reaches the jutting shaft of him, shocky sounds halfway between prayer and profanity.

"S-Saya. You shouldn't—"

"Ssh." She bends to her task. "Just lie back and look pretty."

Haji inhales slowly, but his exhale is rapid, ragged. "Oh God. That—" His head drops back against the pillows. With effort, he raises it again. The awe in his eyes pierces her.

She wants it to be perfect, this introduction to the _Silent Flute_. But she has no finesse for a five-star performance. In her clumsy grip, he radiates heat. The thatch of hair at his groin is the one dark place on his body, except for the ribboning of scars here and there. Curving up into her two hands, his erection is smooth and solid and slick-capped, the heavy vein on the underside visibly thrumming.

For a moment she just—stares. Over a century old, yet she is far from jaded about male anatomy. At the Zoo, she'd read everything from over-the-top erotica like _The Pearl_ to medical treatises that attempted to pigeonhole the rainbow of human desire into black-and-white terminology. As a high-school girl in Okinawa, she'd seen plenty of sex-tips in magazines and shared giggly gossip with friends.

But the reality is different. Complicated, and unpredictable, and obscure. Like math. Like magic.

But Haji's fingers are gentle as they comb through her hair. Flushing, she darts her eyes up, and dips her head down. Blows a cool-hot breath along the underlying vein up to the notched glans, following the stream with her tongue. Then she opens her mouth, careful of her teeth, and swallows him in.

He tastes clean, musky. His pale thighs tremble with the rhythm of her slip-sliding mouth. His hands clutch fistfuls of her hair, wed themselves to her skull, cradle it the way you'd hold a priceless vase. She senses the enormity of his restraint, even as she can't resist goading it. Working him over with her tongue, compelling him with her eyes, until a blush darkens his cheekbones and his gasps melt into groans.

She wants to memorize every sound, map out every sweet-spot, because _God_ , this is insanely hot. Strange that she'd pictured it, in her mind, as degrading. Especially when she's already lost track of how often he's done this same thing for her. Not out of duty or generosity, but pure _hunger_. She hadn't understood why.

She does now.

There is a thrill in watching his body collapse into a mess of tremors alongside his self-command. In letting him pry her mouth open wider, cupping her jaw, while his Chiropteran hand tangles itself in her hair like an entreaty. In letting him take her, not as a glory-hole but as something whose eroticism in rooted in the forbidden, his hips surging until he nearly touches the back of her throat. In learning that even if she is clumsy, wet choking gasps and inept scrapes of teeth, the fact that it is _her_ is enough to send Haji spinning into a frantic headspace, his head dropping back to display a smooth arc of neck, his breaths escalating into a delicious tortured sob she's never heard before.

" _Saya_."

The sound thrills through her sensorium. As if hearing her name enough times will help her re-inhabit it.

Make her whole.

She breaks off, mouth wet and buzzing. "Y-You'll have to show me later. Everything else you like. But right now— _mmph_."

He's snatched her up, fingers tangled in her hair. The kiss is slippery-hot and sublime. Shivering, she melts against him, and Haji enfolds her tighter. She can feel his effort to stay gentle. Feel, too, how the waiting has turned his need as sharp as the blades he keeps hidden in his coat. Cradling her head in his clawed hand, he lets the other roam along her throat, to her breasts, thumbing the nipples, palming down her belly to curl around her mons. She gasps, and he absorbs her tension, instinctively soothing with softer kisses. The cool pads of his fingers slip through the tangle of curls to find her wet, hot, unresisting.

Their eyes catch and hold. Nerves make her heart tumble over itself.

"More?" he whispers.

It is so like him to obtain her consent first. Always.

In answer, she catches him in a long centering kiss. Breaks off to nuzzle against his lips, keeping her senses anchored to the moment. The candles burn in dappled sunspots across the room. In the glow, her eyes flow over him with fascination: skin like pure marble, the spilled corona of his curls and the blue mystery of his gaze. Beautiful and beguiling and so blessedly hers, over a century's suffering coalescing into the body that has shielded her from deadly spikes and deadly sins alike.

The safest place on earth.

Gently, she urges him over onto his back, and climbs across him. His erection is throbbingly hard. She encircles it in her hands, and guides it to her entrance.

"Haji." It is a jittery meow, as he sinks carefully inside. " _Haji_."

He kisses her again, opening her up with sweet stabs of his tongue, with sweeter stabs of his hips. Working his way inside her until their dark hairs are crushed together, the fullness of him pouring bright red into her skull. She cries out. Her mind is like a needle spinning wild, leaving her strung-out with the shockiness of it.

Sighing, Haji steadies her with his fingers, the cool tips floating across her hair and skin. Starts a deep rocking that makes her shudder in place. It's like trying to ride a thoroughbred, without reigns or saddle, her body caught between exhilaration and panic.

Then their eyes meet, and matching smiles sneak out of them both.

"Maybe—" she gasps.

"Hm?"

"Maybe I should've—worn my _devantiere_."

Haji hums, dark-eyed with indulgence. "As long as—you don't put a bit in my mouth."

"I was thinking of sugar cubes." She rolls her hips. "Stirrups."

"No… ahhhh, riding crop?"

"Only if—if you rear up." Mock-sternly, "I expect a racing trot, Sir."

He shifts under her, thrusting deep. "Like that?"

She squeals, because _Like that_ barely comes close. Everything is just a little too much. Yet she loves how it feels to arch over him—so full yet so _hungry_ , the cacophony of her mind flattened so all that's left is the arterial bloom of heat in her body. She follows it with her senses, rocking from spot to spot, her needs steadying into a zone at once feverish and serene as she finds her balance, flexes into motion.

Takes the reins.

"Saya." Haji clutches at her twisting hips. His voice is grittier than a moment ago. " _Saya_."

The sound of his voice pours across her skin in a sensitized ache. Fanning her fingers across his ribs, she speeds up, hair swaying in a tangled wilderness across their faces. Sweat trickles into the hollow of Haji's swallowing throat. She laps it with her tongue, then bites at where his pulse jerks until he gasps into her hair, sibilant growls like spurs digging into her mind. She repays them with kisses: hot and openmouthed, each one changing to complement the way she rides him. Long deep strokes that almost take him out of her, then gliding down in a gallop, thrilling, maddening, frantic, and then Haji calls her name on a strangled nearly-there groan and she laughs at the adrenaline-shock of being so _alive_.

Until her mind flashes a choppy reel of the previous days: the eerie glide of the snake, the creature on the rooftop, the red sprawl of the men's bodies in the alley, Diva's voice like a trickle of icewater in her ear…

 _Come with me, Saya._

"Saya?" Haji touches her face. "Are you all right?"

"Mmm." Tears slip from her eyes, unsynchronized to the moment. "I-I'm okay, Haji. Just—a little emotional."

"Should we stop?"

"Keep going. _Please_."

He rolls her beneath him, safe in the shelter of his body. Cool palms cradling her head. Cool lips dotting kisses to her wet cheeks. Everything slows down. But slow is good too—their shapes folded together in an undulant rhythm, heads templed and gazes matched. Each motion thaws a chill inside her, erases the misshapen ache she hadn't realized was there. Her eyes flutter shut, blood foaming beneath her restless body, igniting a shockwave in spine-deep slow-motion. Her sobs are a bliss that is agony once removed.

And then Haji groans, catching her against him on a surge of tremors, and Saya hangs on for dear life as they ride them out to the end.

Afterward, shivery and sweat-filmed, she cuddles against him in the warm declivity of the mattress. Moonlight plays across the stained-glass window in an Aurora Borealis. Haji keeps her nestled close, his palm pressed between her thighs. It seems to be his habit, post-lovemaking. Saya relishes it.

Possessive, watchful, wanting—this is a side of Haji that belongs only to her.

Kissing her teary eyelashes, he whispers, "Will you cry every time, Saya?"

"I-I don't know. Maybe."

"Is there is something you'd prefer I do differently? Something that sets you off—"

"Ssh. Everything is perfect." She sighs. "That's the problem. Not this. _Me_. What's in my head. Wanting you. Wanting to feel good with you. And then—becoming terrified because I don't deserve it. I don't deserve—"

"Saya." Gently, he takes her face in his hands. "Please do not go there. Not now."

"Not now." His palms are wonderfully cool on her burning skin. "Not ever."

"I did not say that." He steadies her within the crook of his arm, their foreheads resting close. In the tea-lights, his eyes are intensely blue and black on hers. "I still feel... we rushed into this. The bed, the intimacy. I am not sorry. But I cannot ignore my better sense, either." Quieter, "We needn't rush into anything else. Whatever you are feeling... or thinking... take as much time to work through it as you need."

"Haven't I taken enough time already? I've kept you waiting a century for the so-called prize..."

"Do not reduce yourself to that."

"To what?"

"A prize." He lays kisses all around her face. "You are so much more. The bravest person I know. A miracle of… of…"

"Of what?"

He smiles. "A miracle of sheer stubbornness."

The tiny tease steadies something in her chest, as if down in the stormy depths of her an anchor has settled. She nuzzles into him breathlessly. "Can I ask you something, Haji?"

"Hm?"

"Stubbornness aside… am I at least what you hoped? I-I mean, we've barely gotten started. But I'll get better with time. At everything. I'll—"

With a mute moan of helplessness, Haji enfolds her closer, burying his face in her hair. His palms skim everywhere across her body: breasts, belly, thighs, greedy, grateful, worshipful. She can feel without asking her effect on him, the enormity of his desire that she is barely beginning to fathom. It is there in the soft fervent glow of his eyes. There in his voice as he whispers her name, intensified to an adoration that sweeps a flush along her skin. There in his kisses, hot and deep and endless, their pulse beating in tandem wherever their bodies touch.

It shouldn't feel scary, but it does. Scary to be cherished this way. Scary to be so _safe_.

He whispers: "If you get better..."

"Mm?"

"If you get better, Saya, you will surely kill me. Because this is already better than I can stand."

He isn't eloquent even in ordinary circumstances. This, from him, is paragraphs of adulation

Saya bites her lip around a smile. It isn't easy, her transition from war to peace, death to life. Yet he is always so solidly _there_. Always accepting from her bursts of moodiness that another man would never tolerate. Part of being her Chevalier, she reasons. Yet he isn't tentative as her lover, either. The difference isn't in the emotions, but their texture. He remains as touchingly thoughtful as ever. He never alters his attentiveness to her.

But where before it was at a sentry's distance, now it is all around her—an outrush of devotion that is proving heavier than expected.

What if she is never equal to it?

Shivering, she burrows closer. "I-I hope you know," she whispers, "No matter how mopey I seem, I'm not _un_ happy. Just a little... a lot... disoriented. But I'm glad you're with me. I'm glad my family is. It was nice to catch up today with everyone. And to hear from Joel."

"What did Monsieur Goldschmidt wish to discuss?"

"He, um..." She doesn't want to share the unsettling feeling during the conversation. As if Joel wasn't checking in, but checking out. Permanently. "He wanted to see how I was. He told me... about Diva's tower. They plan to demolish it. But he wanted to hold back until I saw it myself."

He caresses her spine. "Do you wish to visit there?"

"I-I don't know. It'd be weird, wouldn't it? Like a criminal returning to a crime-scene."

"You are hardly a criminal, Saya."

Her jaw clamps on a reflexive denial. It is difficult, most days, to see herself as anything but.

Quietly, Haji adds, "It would be a good chance for closure. Afterward, perhaps we could travel?"

"Travel?"

"To places you'd always hoped to see. Spain. Italy. Greece."

It's an alluring idea. Yet she can't yet agree to them taking off together—not just on account of time lost with Kai and the twins, but because she doesn't yet feel ready for the luxury of travel. It seems wrong, somehow.

 _It's not like you're living life to the fullest here,_ Diva sneers in her ear.

 _Shut up,_ she thinks. To Haji: "How about America? I've always wanted to see LA."

"I have been to LA many times on tours." He makes a faint, wincing face that betrays boredom. "You would not care for it."

"Oh? There go my dreams of moving to California and starting a yoga studio."

Haji's smile is hidden in her hair. "We can go, if you wish. It is your choice."

"No. We can't travel unless we're in accord about our bucket-list." She sighs. "What's the loveliest place you've ever visited?"

He seems to ponder this. "The Faroe Islands."

" _And_?" She butts her head playfully against his shoulder. "What was so great about them, Mr. Bullet-Points?"

Haji makes a little sound of contemplation or amusement. "The scenery. Most of the archipelago is emerald green. Dark cliffs. Stormy sea-waves. It is almost mystical." A beat. "There are also puffins everywhere."

" _Puffins_?"

"They are good in stew."

"You ate _puffin_ stew?!"

His eyes hold a dry gleam. "You would like it. Heavy fare. But filling."

"Mmm. You _are_ good at knowing what fills me up..."

She crooks up her leg, tangled between his, to prove her point. A growl hitches in his throat, and she giggles—until he tips her head up for a kiss. It goes on until she is breathless and skin-shivery. Not a surface craving, but deeper, like a heavy ache blooming from her chest and into lightness.

Like her whole body is a secret that can only share itself here.

"Mmmm," she sighs, as Haji slides his palms up her ribcage to her breasts, dusting them with cool kisses. "I meant this to be a quick—quickie—"

"Hm?"

"But you're turning it into—an _amuse-bouche_ in a full-course dinner."

" _Amuse bouche_." Haji's voice licks across her skin like a cat's tongue. " _Le mot est un peu sale_."

" _Tu as juste un esprit—mal—mal tourné._ _Ohhh_."

He's pinned her wrists over her head, force sheathed in tenderness. Coaxing her thighs to fan open and fit him over her, like a _dèveloppé_ in a ballet. Not entering her, but stroking the heavy length of himself along the slicked folds of her labia, over and over, just like on their first night—only this time the maddening caress leaves her astonished that she can tremble so badly yet not be the least bit afraid.

"Ha-Haji..."

It is _Please_ by any other name

Hands entwined with hers, he sinks inside slow and heavy. The fullness makes her mind white out, the circuit of completion making her shake. Sobbing, she breaks their grip to encompass him tighter in her arms and legs. His bone-heavy shape against her, his cool breaths stirring her hair, hips moving in a giving grind, are all a sanctuary of the most precarious kind.

"Slow?" he whispers in her ear.

"Take forever," she breathes. "Please. Can we never stop?"

He tips her head up to catch her mouth. Kisses rising from deep inside, as if secrets of his own are tremoring across the tongue to take flight.

 _Anything you want. I've got you. I'm yours._

Effortless exchange just below the surface.

Later, swimming in the white seas of the bedsheets, she drowses. There is an inward sigh of regret when Haji draws away. She feels his fingers in her hair, smoothing it from her forehead. His cool lips touch her cheek.

"You will be all right," he whispers. "You will, Saya."

Then the mattress shifts and he is gone.

Freed of his weight, Saya is immediately lonely. But she dares not call him back. He always departs toward the tail-end of the night. The reflex of a watchman resuming his post—but also a reminder that her Awakening has interrupted the rhythms of his life in Okinawa. The work he does at the university. The Red Shield ops he takes with Dee and the twins. The meetings with old and new talent from the music industry.

Her Chevalier has quite a busy life going for himself lately. Saya admires his sense of quiet purpose. But it also calls attention to her own lack of direction.

An attention that leads, inevitably, to restlessness.

Sighing, she sits up in bed. Her body feels like a glowing-hot ember; she imagines Haji's love-bites as radioactive rosettes across her skin. After the pleasure he's wrung from her, she should be dead to the world. Yet no matter the depth of her exhaustion, sleep always eludes her.

By habit, she reaches for the books on her bedside table. A few volumes are borrowed from the twins— _when, oh when, will you get ebooks, Auntie Saya?—_ but most are from the Zoo.

Her favorite, now as then, is the leather-bound collection of fairytales by Perrault and Straparola.

Without switching on the lamp, she thumbs through its parchment pages. The illustrations are hand-drawn and exquisitely colorful. She skims through the old stories. _Raiponce. La Belle au Bois Dormant. Neige Blanche et Rose Rouge._

Tonight, she is in the mood for an old Italian classic. _Biancabella et le Serpent._

Drowsily, she reads the introduction. "... _Once upon a time, there reigned a marquis and marchioness. They were respected for both their wisdom and their great wealth. But to their grief, they had no children between them. Though still comely, the marchioness was past the age of childbearing. This troubled her greatly. She slept little and prayed day and night for the gods to bless her with a child. One day chanced the marchioness strolling in the palace garden, when, overcome by sleep, she lapsed into slumber next to a tree. While she slept, there crept to her side a snake, which slipped under her dress without rousing her, and made its way with stealthy windings into her womb, where it lay quiescent. Before long the marchioness, to her joy, and the joy of all the state, found herself to be with child..."_

Saya stops, disturbed. In her mind's eye she sees that snake again, gliding toward her with sinister slowness.

Why does she keep seeing it, in her dreams, at the corners of her eyes? And why is it inevitably tailed by the sound of her name?

Shutting the book, she sets it aside. She really should put it in storage. Whatever its nostalgic charms, it is ridiculous to keep reading it. Marchionesses. Snakes. Babies. These are not the bedtime fancies a warrior should indulge in.

Punching her pillow, she settles in to try and sleep. The villa is perfectly quiet; the music room, where Haji composes melodies at this hour, is soundproofed. Outside, from the half-cracked window, the scent of impending rain wafts across the sago palms.

A peaceful night to settle in and dream.

At the cusp of sleep, she thinks she is already dreaming; there are strange sounds which seem to be inside her body, the voice of a woman, saying her name, warning her to be ready, grab her sword, her cries vibrating in Saya's bones.

Then suddenly she is jerked awake by a very real sound—outside not inside. A _scrchhhh-scrchhhh_ at the barely-open window, furtive but repetitive. She is sure it is only a palm frond, but instinct tells her otherwise.

 _That's ridiculous._

 _A trespasser would set off the alarms._

 _Or set off Haji._

Yet she reaches for the sword at her bedside. The _scrchhhh-scrchhhh_ grows louder. Without bothering with her dressing gown, she tosses aside the covers and goes to the window. Something is definitely there; bat-wings of shadow are spread out behind the stained-glass. She can't sense a presence. But her fingers tighten on the hilt of her sword.

 _Who is that?_

In one swift motion, she jabs the butt at the windowpane. It flings open, the monsoon wind whipping into the room. Goosepimples break across Saya's bare skin. The windowframe is a delineated rectangle around an unnaturally bright moon. She can see the stirring tops of palm trees, the glittery slice of the sea.

Nothing else.

Except—

"Oh God."

It slips from her mouth like poison.

A heartbeat later, the light in her room snaps on. Without turning her head, she knows it is Haji. Summoned by the softest splinter of her voice, by her spiking pulse.

He doesn't ask what the matter is. Like her, he is staring at the surreality sprung up around her window.

The walls outside her room are tangled with climbing blossoms. Most have barely begun to grow from tight pretty buds into florets. Some mornings, she catches their rich green scent in the air, intermixed with whiffs of perfume.

The smell is unnaturally strong now, so pure it is almost dizzying.

Roses.

They are clustered all around her window, their leaves frosted with night-dew. Each one unfurling on double-time, right before her eyes. Each one a perfect origami whorl, the petals translucent in the gilded glow of the moon.

"Saya."

Haji's cool hand touches her shoulder. She doesn't move. In some distant chamber of her heart, she understands she is _terrified_. Yet she can't feel it. Can't feel anything but the déjà vu crawling through her bones.

All around her window, roses are in bloom.

Blue roses.

Just like in Diva's tower.

* * *

Naminoue Beach

1-25-11 Wakasa, Naha,

Okinawa Prefecture 900-0037

It isn't a villa. It is a _fortress_.

Tórir has followed her scent to Naminoue Beach, an olfactory breadcrumb trail of sweetness.

He's found the elegant limestone building, long and angular and spread out like slabs of ice across the cliffside. He's scoped out the entrance and exit points, not for a plan to attack but out of curious opportunism. He's begun memorizing their routines—solo and together. When she goes to the solarium. When he plays cello at the patio. When they receive visitors. When they walk arm-in-arm along the lacy edge of the shoreline. When she goes there alone, usually when the sky darkens to evening, and sits with her legs curled under her, her face bearing a swimmy, dreamlike look, like someone under a spell.

He'd expected, based on his blurry sketch of Saya and Haji, composed with bits and pieces of the Red Shield boy's memory, that he was dealing with toothless prey. Creatures who live as domesticated dogs do: floppy-eared and harmless, trotting endearingly at the heels of the humans around them. Creatures who are easy to catch off-guard.

Barely a week later, he reassesses his opinion.

The villa has no point of ingress. There are alarms across the length of the grounds. Electric eyes. Motion sensors. The glass at the windows is tempered. The locks are activated and deactivated by the residents' fingerprints or their cellphones. Around the perimeter of the villa, a drone circles.

Nothing can get inside—be it a bullet or a beetle.

Tórir is tempted to call the paranoia excessive. But, twining his mind's fingers around the threads of information in the boy's blood, he remembers: _Saya and Haji have fought in a war._

They have enemies—and irritants. The Chevalier, little better than a wandering minstrel, has only a decade prior gained international renown. He prefers his privacy. Prefers too, to prowl the grounds late at night, his eyes darting like with a hunter's across the sand. Whenever Saya goes out, he accompanies her, a one-man retinue. When they dine out at restaurants, he takes the seat with an unimpeded view of the entrance, guarding her back. In solitary moments, he practices with edged weapons, making throwing knives move like spinnerets, like silk, like shiny metal monsters with minds of their own.

In Tórir's time, Queens had elaborate phalanxes of Chevaliers to fulfill each role. Saya only has one Chevalier. But, _gods_ , the man is unnaturally gifted. A bricoleur.

Haji makes Tórir wary. But Saya...

She fascinates him.

So shy on the surface. A pout that can melt chocolate. But there is darkness lurking beneath her smooth face, and those guileless eyes.

One night, Tórir watches her train with her sword. Such an unusual weapon. A _katana_ , they call it. Wickedly bright and deceptively simple: its handle wrapped in leather, a red stone glittering madly at its base, the palest hairline abrasions along the blade where she has polished it with a whetstone. She wields it with lethal accuracy, moving it in her hand like a part of herself, smooth feints and dodges. Her body carries a sharpness that is of a piece with the weapon, each movement calibrated to deliver maximum damage with minimum warning.

In that moment, there is no difference between her or the Red Queen. She is the same size, the same shape. Her whole essence is a pulsating echo of her ancestor's.

The Queen who had made Tórir immortal. Who had slaughtered all his brothers. Who had, with the cruelty that came as easily to her as breathing, once slaughtered Tórir's own father.

Robbed of oxygen, the human brain begins to corrode in one minute. Tórir has taken great droughts of Ashleigh and her fiancé's blood. One RN, one doctor. He knows the terminology. _Cerebral hypoxia._ In those days, leagues and lifetimes away, he'd pictured it differently. A black stain, the size of a wolf's pawprint, across the surface of his father's brain.

Dead meat.

That was how the Red Queen had treated him. Dead meat. Using him as a blood-juicy target for her javelin.

Tórir remembers its point striking his father's arm with a wet heavy _thuck_. The Queen's Chevaliers all around, each with their own spears. They'd hurled them carelessly. Like it was a game. Each spear hit his father's chest, his thighs, his gut, missing often, strays sailing into the air, bouncing off the grass. All of them laughing: the invincible laughter of invincible creatures.

People in Tórir's village never laughed that way.

The sound of their laughter had terrified Tórir. It was like a wall of darkness falling from the sky. More disturbing still was the sound of his father breaking apart. His gagging sputters as the life oozed out of him. The coppery red brine of his blood spewing across the grass. And on and on, spears sliced around him. One struck him right in the skull, tearing a line across his temple, his flesh splitting open to reveal the gleaming white of bone beneath. A second spear lodged in his belly, sinking in with such pressurized force that Tórir saw the pink of his insides spilling through the slit.

His father was chained to a post in the Queen's courtyard. A punishment for passing secrets from her court to that of a rival's. For accepting bribes as payment to feed his wife and six sons.

The Queen's court denounced the act as treason. Tórir and his family were dragged out to watch his punishment. When it was over, the post was slick with blood, the grass red with it. The Queen and her Chevaliers grew bored and departed. His father's mangled body spasmed in the pale winter sunlight. Not quite alive, not quite dead. Jaw hanging open. Blood hemorraging into both his eyeballs.

Dead meat.

The village's medicine man stitched him up. Kept him alive—in a manner of speaking—almost a fortnight. But it was no different from watering a turnip pulled out of the soil. The fabric of his father's brain had been sliced to pieces. Ruined, like his body itself.

After his burial, their whole family was shunned. Tórir's mother soon resorted to peddling what little she had to offer.

 _The whore's boys,_ the village called him and his brothers. Not a slur but a brutal summation of their future. Six boys earmarked for a lifetime of bitter isolation, scraping poverty, corruption and disaster. It should have torn them down and apart. Ruined them, in ways not unlike their father.

Instead they had ascended to heights beyond the villagers' imaginings. They were reborn as gods among men.

Then they'd turned and slaughtered the very gods who sired them.

Tórir remembers those days. Perched high on the cliffside, gazing down at the villa, he thinks of the Queens. Their beauty, their extraordinary barbarity. Some beings live as comets do: blazing a path through the pages of history with a fire of their own creation. Scorching everyone around them, leaving despair and destruction in their wake.

Even today, their imprints echo the shape of the sun itself. The humans' folklore, the more Tórir learns of it, is a multifaceted marvel of their single story. Goddesses who are protectors and providers, predators and pillagers, invoked by midwives and warriors alike.

In Tórir 's heyday, they had many names. _Valkyrja_. Valkyrie. Chooser of the slain. _Idisi_. Dísir. Goddesses of fertility. _Nornir_. Norns. Rulers of Wyrd.

At every turn, the Queens were the harbingers of love and hate, life and death, pleasure and pain, their selves linked in an eternal opposition of roles, a universal duality of titles. And yet the Queens were always completely and unabashedly themselves, choosing to dance to the beat of their own drums. Powerful and preternatural, they had walked the fine line between mother and monster, life and death, swaying on their tiptoes and laughing at the joy of balancing so perfectly on the edge.

Tórir had wanted nothing more than to claim that joy. To trap and extinguish it little by little. A slow death to match an immortal's interminable life.

 _Sweet Saya._

 _Will you be as fine sport as the Red Queen? As the Blue?_

Curiosity burns him. But he is content to be patient. To play the sentinel, slinking in the shadows like a mirror image of Saya's Chevalier. To strip away the layers of the villa, one by one, until he is inside.

So he circles, and watches, and learns.

Each day, he grows bolder. From making wide circuits of the perimeter to smaller ones. To skimming whisper-fast across the sand, then dodging the magnetic waves of the security system. They pulsate outward at intervals. Twice in ripples. Thrice in grid-patterns. He memorizes their timings. Each incursion lures him closer and closer toward the villa. He sees the topmost windows flashing in jewel colors. The tiny tropical jungle in the solarium. Saya's small shape bent over a bed of rosebuds. With every pass, he memorizes the delicate details of her. The pretty starfishes of her hands. The pink folds of the frock skimming across her legs. The sweat shining like dew on her skin.

The solarium is her sanctuary. In the blue morning hours, she snips with shears and dabbles with seeds with an almost religious fervor, while her Chevalier sits outside with his cello, tuning the strings while keeping watch from under his dipped eyelashes.

Maybe the daily ritual centers her: the flitting butterflies, the dirt rimming her fingernails, the perfume of life and decay.

She is, Tórir understands, in mourning.

He never actually catches her at it. But from time to time he sees her cheerful bubble go _pop_. Her eyes go dark as tunnels, her mind falling down a memory hole. Thirty years ago, she'd killed her own sister. Tórir knows the sordid story from the blood of the Red Shield boy.

In his own lifetime, one Queen killing another was sacrilege, so closely twined were the two, a pair of lungs that kept the kingdom breathing. In rare occasions, when one Queen outlived the other, the survivor would sequester herself till the end of her days.

Those rarely lasted long. Most Queens chose death to an eternity without their other self.

Is that why Saya's Chevalier is so vigilant? Certainly, a pall of futility hangs over her. All the requisites to queenship—heirs, lands, titles, armies—are not hers to claim. Not in this era. Without her sister—her sister's Chevaliers—her chance for progeny is also uncertain.

Queens exercised nearly limitless power in Tórir's time. But they were always careful to secure their succession. The strength of the body politic was tied to the fertility of the Queen's own body. Her beddings and pregnancies were never private affairs, but shared with the entire court. Birthings—aberrant or successful—were events the whole realm had a stake in.

But if Saya knows this, she seems not to care.

When not lapsing in a brood, she sometimes behaves as a child does. Gathering seashells by the shore. Splashing in the rain puddles. Knotting her Chevalier's hair into dozens of braids. One evening, at the kitchen window, Tórir catches her listening to the birds twittering in the palm trees. "Scops-owl," she says to herself. Then, to another shrill twittering, "Ryukyu robin." Teaching herself to differentiate between their calls. Another afternoon, he catches her sitting perfectly still at the villa's steps. Soaking in the sunlight as a flower does.

In some ways, her behavior is a replica of Tórir's own. The world is so outsized, so colorful since his imprisonment. Changed in a billion tiny ways that, taken together, are massive. Everything tastes different, smells different. Milk in a cardboard quart. A steak marbled with sizzling bits of fat. A rich dollop of honey spooned from a jar. The juicy crunch of biting into a green apple.

Tórir, even after his rebirth as a Chevalier, has enjoyed human food. In his day, the choices were tasty but spare: seal, fish, seabirds, boiled mutton, potatoes. Occasionally, as a treat, cream sprinkled with brown sugar.

Here, the selections do his head in. Drifting through a supermarket, the fluorescent lights making his eyeballs buzz, he gawps at all the packaged foods, scrupulously orderly and clean. Most are Okinawan. But others come from countries he knows nothing of. America. The United Kingdom. China. New Zealand. Denmark.

His mind, weaned on the specialized ken of doctors, teenagers, security guards and homeless men, is lacking broader context, both global and local.

He must feed on someone with greater knowledge. Someone with an understanding of the world's affairs, and of their shadowy underbelly.

Someone from Red Shield itself?

Staking out again at Saya's villa, he watches her visitors. A burly, gruff-voiced man named Kai. Sayumi and Sayuri, Kai's ostensible daughters, and Queens in their own right. Both of them are pretty, but puny. More mortal than _mareridt_. Their Chevaliers, V and Sachi, are soldiers too, but of a different breed from Haji. Less disciplined.

Ambushing one of them—alone—would be easy. But that is the problem. No one in the group is ever _alone_. The family is too cohesive, keeping up a steady stream of visits, texts, phonecalls, outings within a wired web of intimacy.

A web he cannot breach—literally or metaphorically.

 _This is_ , Tórir thinks, as the days go by, _supremely boring_.

A day-to-day vigil is no fun when you're on the outside, barely looking in.

Then, one night, he gets lucky.

A strip of security sensors in the garden short-circuits. Maybe corroded wiring. Maybe a glitch due to the rainfall. It is barely three feet wide, twenty feet across. But it aims right at Saya's bedroom.

The opportunity is too good to pass up.

He launches himself in a soundless explosion of fabric and flesh. A whistling _whoosh_ , a breakneck bend, and he's slingshotted from his perch to the ledge of her window. It is open. Just a hair. But he dares not touch it. Likely it is rigged with alarms like everything else in the accursed villa.

So, at a careful crouch, Tórir aligns one eye to the gap. And watches.

That is the first time he sees Saya with her Chevalier. Face-to-face, his fingers in the roots of her spilled hair, her thighs widespread and shaking against his hips. The soft gold glow of tealights limns their rocking bodies. The sound of their breathing reminds Tórir of a whispered prayer in a _Hof_ —the temples for worship in his heyday. A space where all is silent, the stillness pouring across the wide spaces and into the listener's heart.

A place not of carnality, but communion.

Until Saya's energy flares, and she is no longer still, or silent. Tórir watches it all, swallowing in a throat gone dry. Body flooded with a ghost-dream of wonder. He remembers her small, delicate hands. The nails so deep in the Chevalier's back they draw blood. He remembers her gasps, a silky sibilant _Yes, oh yes_ that dissolves into cries, shocking cries, inarticulate and soaring, as if something is taking wing inside her. He remembers the Chevalier's hips quickening, controlled movements out of synch with the raw adoration in his eyes.

Both their passions darkening, burgeoning, _bursting_ —yet what thrills Tórir is the ...catch in her climax. The teeth-clenched restraint. Here, as in battle, she withholds the wildest part of herself.

The truest.

He watches them finish, not in a sudden collapse but in dreamlike increments, their bodies stirring and shuddering, shuddering and stirring, and then melting across the sheets. He watches Saya's eyes flutter open as if lulled out of a trance, her hands lifting to gently stroke her Chevalier's skull through its tangle of dark hair, to let it settle against her breasts. To let him listen, beneath them, to the thrumming musicality of her heart.

Tórir's own heart is beating hard enough to shudder every bone in his body. With effort, he calms himself. Fights not to slip a hand under the waist of his trousers and touch the throbbing hardness there. Inhaling slowly, he catches the briny salt of the sea, and another, more heady scent from the villa's bedroom: something sweet and hot and hormonal.

A Queen in heat.

Later, she dozes. Her Chevalier slips out of bed, smoothing her hair under a gentle palm. In the moon-shot room, he reminds Tórir of a pilgrim gazing upon the temple at Uppsala, all his cool insouciance melted into fervent humility.

Quietly, he gathers up his clothes before quitting the room. Tórir hears a door creak somewhere in the villa, the pipes rumble, the shower come on.

Running water. Another miracle in this future.

Left alone, the tantalizing sight of Queen-on-her-own stirs him. A full-bodied stirring: ten times stronger than anything he'd felt for the Red Queen or the Blue. It is as though his torturous imprisonment, which had mummified all his senses, has only just shattered. Every inch of him is vibrating, hyper-attuned.

Awake.

The desire to go to her—to take _from_ her, or take her in her entirety?—is so intense his skin itches with it. It is why he understands he'd tracked her down. Something inside her—soul-song, blood-song—calls to him. She is meant to be his possession.

His plaything.

The potential inside her, quashed beneath human frippery, can be coaxed out. Molded. Unleashed. She will struggle against it. But it is the struggle that always sends Tórir. The shock and agony as he peels away his prey's layers one by one. As he forces them to, then past, their physical and psychic limits.

He'd broken the Blue Queen the same way. Driven her to misery, to mewlings, then finally to madness. It had been a satisfying game. But the Blue Queen was never his ultimate prize.

He'd wanted to break the Red.

Break her as she'd broken his father, long ago. Despoil her as the villagers had despoiled his mother. Starve her as Tórir and his brothers had been made to starve. Cripple her as she'd crippled the very core of Tórir's capacity to know joy.

The Red Queen is gone. But here is another, a softer replica. She has all the Red Queen's flash-fire ferocity. But she exudes it quietly, quietly. The control of one afraid to confront the depths of herself.

Tórir smiles. The smile of a bard, or a butcher.

 _Sweet Saya._

 _I will enjoy playing with you. Will you put up a fight for me?_

He hopes so. It would be no challenge otherwise. And once he is done chipping her mind into powder...

Well.

The body will serve perfectly as a broodmare's.

In the bedroom, Saya stirs. Sits up, glancing around with groggy eyes.

Tórir tenses.

 _Can she sense me...?_

It is then that he becomes aware of the noise. A faint _scrchhhhh-scrchhhh._

It is the roses growing around the walls of the bedroom window. Each one blossoming at uncanny speed, darkening to the richest hue of blue. Each one fed by the lines of energy spinning from his body—or maybe hers?—and into their leafy veins.

The effect Queens and Chevaliers have always had on flora and fauna. _Seiðr_ , they called it in Tórir's time. Sorcery. Everything a Queen or her progeny touched, they'd enlivened or drained depending on their mood. A magic that could not be explained by mortal tongue, yet here was ample demonstration.

 _Let it be my parting gift for her._

 _Until we next meet._

In the midst of the blooming roses and the high sea wind, he feels a spike of static. The air around him grows charged with erratic waves.

The security system has come on again. Someone—her Chevalier probably—has noticed the glitch and remedied it.

Overlaying that is the Chevalier's own aura. A cold, precise pocket of darkness.

 _He might sense a threat._

It is time for Tórir to leave.

So he does. Barely between one heartbeat and the next, he arches his spine and surges up and away. His wings unfurl in a snap-shutter before slicing through the air, a smooth and straight ascent straight through the night sky. Like a shot of the purest adrenaline.

Like the first gulp of the Red Queen's blood.

He will meet with Saya. But not like this. Not here. To get close to her, the first step it to find a neutral venue. A place where her guard—and Haji's—will drop.

And then the _fun_ will begin.

* * *

 _Tórir, you massive creep :|_

 _As mentioned, Saya will meet him in the next-to-next installment. But there'll be plenty of portents and puzzles to keep her occupied in the interim. Let me know if you guys prefer the story to be heading in a different direction, or if there's certain areas you'd like me to focus on!_

 _"Amuse bouche." = An appetizer, but also a pun on Amuse the Bush._

 _"Le mot est un peu sale." = Rather dirty word._

 _"Tu as juste un esprit mal tourné." = You just have a dirty mind._

 _Review, pretty please!_


	13. Killer Queen

_New chapter is up! A little slice-of-life, a little fluff, a little angst - and a weird dash of the supernatural._ _Tórir is circling closer and closer toward Saya, and will meet her face-to-face in the next installment. Meanwhile the first cracks of strain are showing in Saya and Haji's relationship, and in Saya's own troubled psyche._

 _Hope you guys enjoy!_ _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

T-Galleria

4-1 Omoromachi

Naha 900-0006,

Okinawa Prefecture

"What about this one? Pale apricot."

Saya holds up a gown beneath her chin, a crepey satin with seed pearls sewn into the bodice.

Haji hesitates. "It is nice."

"You said that about the last four dresses."

"They were not... objectionable."

"What does that even _mean_?"

"...Nice...?"

She sighs. The fluorescent lights in the store do disservice to her complexion, draining it into a wan weariness. The hollows beneath her eyes seem etched in.

This shopping trip was her idea, to get out of the villa. Away from the blue roses, that have sprouted _everywhere_ : along the walls, across the hedges, inside the solarium.

Discussing their mysterious appearance with Red Shield has yielded no answers. Ezra Silverstein, visiting with an entourage of fellow scientists, has tentatively suggested a pheromone Queens and Chevaliers give off. Something that alters the behaviors of animals and plants alike.

 _"It could something related to your body chemistry,"_ he suggested to Saya. _"Maybe even Haji's. Some... pheromonal flux. The plants reacted accordingly."_

 _"But why blue roses?"_ Saya asked.

 _"That, I'm not sure of. But remember. They grew around Diva's abodes too. It's possible..."_

 _"What?"_

Ezra sighed. _"It's possible what's characteristic of one Queen is true of the other. There's plenty of mysteries in your blood we haven't solved yet."_

Hardly the reassurance Saya hoped for.

The last few weeks, Haji has heard her whispering Diva's name in her sleep, or jerking to noises at the window, or gazing at the blue wonderland in the solarium with blind eyes. A fortnight ago, she'd eaten nothing but meat, nearly raw, and refused the twins' fresh-baked cookies or Kai's homemade egg-rolls. Soon after, he'd found her unpacking all the storage boxes from the Zoo, sitting crosslegged among the dust and detritus, as if tracing her own history—or rearranging it. The past few nights, she's begun carrying Diva's crystallized rock around almost defiantly, holding it in her cupped palms, until Haji thinks it will dissolve from all her handling.

Interrogation would be reflexive, but he holds his tongue.

Saya is a fighter. If she finds herself cornered, she tends to come out swinging. The few times he's pushed for answers, she's either erupted into rage—or shut down completely. It is evident this is a sphere of her life (her self?) she refuses to expose.

Yet in other respects, she is sharing more each day. With the deepening of their physical relationship, the shell of stiffness around her is eroding. Less hitches of anxiety when he kisses her. Less stumbling away after sex to hide in the bathroom. Her old traumas are still triggered to the surface now and again. But rarer as time goes on. In bed she is growing kittenish, indulgently playful.

Lovemaking, even at its tender half-speed, has become one of the strongest pulsepoints of their intimacy.

Saya's trust, Haji knows, is never won with talk. But here is one arena where it can be proven with action. They can play together—both as adults and as children. Learning. Failing. Even laughing.

Once, while Haji is commuting from the university, she sends him racy snaps of herself, a sneaky _ping-ping-ping_ of notifs that make him goggle and nearly drop his phone on the crowded train. Another time, after dinner, she tries a wicked game with mango chutney and his bare skin. Leaves them both smirched and sticky and sated afterwards on the kitchen floor, her spicysweet giggles sounding like how the chutney tasted. A week after that, she invites him into the bathtub with her, great froths of bubbles everywhere, sloshing at the rim and around their heat-slicked bodies, her tickled-pink laughter reverberating off the tiles before it darkens into sighs and moans.

More enlivening still is their headway into domesticity. A word that is usually the flagstaff of Hell, but which Haji senses that Saya enjoys as much as he does.

All of her things have been moved out of Omoro and into her new home. Bit by bit, Saya-spoor begins appearing all around the villa. Her music vinyls are beginning to vie with Haji's for space. Her paperbacks—romances, pulp fictions and graphic novels—are stacked haphazardly on top of Haji's music books. The fridge is stocked entirely with her favorite foods, the freezer with her ice creams. In the music room, she's rediscovered the piano, and sometimes fills the air with charming arpeggios that Haji harmonizes with his cello.

The villa, once a static space, is becoming theirs—not halved but _shared_.

Haji grows to crave the little rituals. The sight of Saya in her panda-print pajamas at breakfast, rubbing sleep-crumbs from her eyes and cramming _onigiri_ into her mouth. The sound of her religiously brushing her teeth at bedtime, the childlike _ptah ptah_ as she spits into the sink. The way she cuddles next to him on the couch in the evenings as they watch old black-and-white films together, her little hand foraging from the popcorn bowl in his lap. Sharing the same bottle of juice. The same laundry basket.

Most nights: the same bed.

Sleeping with her—not the sex, lying beside her as she _sleeps_ —is still one of the most exhilarating treats for Haji. Spooned up against her each night, moonlight filtering through the blinds and quartering her lovely face in bands of dark and light, he catches himself thinking, _This can't be real._

He doesn't deserve to be this lucky. Happiness piled upon happiness is an anomaly in real life.

Each time, he is sure there will be no more nightmares for her. Yet each time, there are, and leave Haji spooked.

Because, in the moment between dreams and waking, she rouses with a peculiar expression that is not her own. Sometimes she laughs, but it isn't Saya's laugh. Her voice is languid and breathy, her eyes spectral beneath dipped lashes.

Then she'll blink, her face resuming its familiar contours. She'll stare at him, and ask what's wrong.

Haji never knows what to say.

 _She just needs time,_ he thinks, watching Saya choose gowns at the vintage boutique. _She will be fine._

 _She_ is _fine._

"I like this hoop-skirt one too," she says. "But it only comes in black. I can't wear black to the event."

"Why not wear one of your Zoo gowns?"

She recoils perceptibly. " _No!_ " Then, softer, "No. I'd have to get them altered. They don't fit anymore."

"Don't fit?"

She colors up. "I was... curvier in those days. Now they'd need padding."

"Ah."

The wisest word a man can utter in such moments.

"Anyway, they're _relics_. They smell like smoke and mothballs. I want..."

"What?"

Lip bit, she reaches for his hand. "I-I want to look pretty. For you. The twins said this will be a huge event."

Touched, Haji caresses her fingers with his thumb. "It is only a thousand people."

" _Only_?"

"The biggest crowd the _Philharmonic_ performed for was at Beethovenfest, in 2028. Over seven hundred thousand in attendance. This is merely a fundraiser for the University of Arts."

"Sponsored by the US embassy! And internationally televised!"

"Do not remind me."

He has seen himself on photographs and TV screens before—greyscale profiles inside album covers, or stony behind sunglasses in paparazzi snaps, or posed with a choreography worthy of integral calculus in glossy fashion mags, or unrecognizably sleek and stylized in videos. But he's never been able to fight that cold-water shiver of dissociation, a sense of being on the outside looking in at himself.

Gently, he interlaces his fingers with Saya's. Hers are cold, twitching.

"You need not attend, if it is too troublesome," he murmurs. "It is only a PR sop arranged by our agency. There will be others in the future. At home and overseas."

Hearing this, Saya wilts. "Do—do you not want me there?"

"What? Of course I do. But—"

"But I'd be in the way, right? You've had such a busy life before I interrupted—"

"Saya. _No_."

His hand tightens around hers. He brings the other, wrapped in the usual white bandages, to caress her jaw. "You interrupted nothing. Except the time I was biding until you arrived."

He is ready to repeat it again and again until she believes it. It is excruciating when she gets this way. Insecure about something which should never be in doubt. His haphazard catapulting into fame was pure chance. The career he'd strung together afterward: pure pragmatism. But the only thing driving him toward a semblance of a goal, was _Saya_.

Her presence was—will _always_ be—the heart of his life.

She smiles, a thin layer of candyfloss across the hard bite of uncertainty. "Just biding time? No bacchanalias and saturnalias with groupies?"

"They mean the same thing."

"And _you_ know what I mean."

"I do." He smiles wryly. "They did not fit into my schedule."

"Do I fit?"

"Of course. You are always—"

"What?"

His voice is matter-of-fact, but within its bland ordinariness is a lick of humor. "Gunpowder, gelatin, dynamite with a laser beam…"

Saya blinks, momentarily caught off-guard. "Did you just quote _Killer_ _Queen_ at me?"

"I find that it fits." His bandaged thumb strokes her cheek. "As you do."

She blushes and visibly wavers. But beneath, she radiates sorrow, while trying so hard to conceal it from him. If Haji had the nerve, he would gather her in and kiss her, until the aura dispels into the soda-pop fizz of her excitement. But neither of them is comfortable with such blatant displays.

Then again, is there any reason to downplay them?

And so, as they drift through the store, he lets his fingers glide often to her. The small of her back, her shoulder, her arm, their bodies obliquely intersecting as if in a waltz. Saya's lips are set in an enigmatic smile—a coded, _This is new, but I like it._ In answer, Haji lets his hand stay put, the ordinariness of the gesture an unexpected thrill. Around them, exquisite dresses in rainbow colors are laid on slabs of marble like sacrifices at the altar. The air smells delicately of jasmine.

The boutique is one of Yuri's favorites. They've already visited a handful of others she'd suggested. Nothing piqued Saya's interest, but Haji does not mind. Shopping ranks low on his list of preferred activities. But the nearness of her is a constant thrill. As long as they are together, he will follow her anywhere.

"What about this one? In pink?"

Saya holds up a delicate taffeta construction, pale rose with ribbon flowers embroidered at the bodice.

He nods. "It is pleasant."

"That describes a salad bowl, Haji."

"... Nice...?"

She huffs. "I guess 'nice' is better than 'no.' Okay. Gimme the rest." She gathers the dresses out of his arm and begins walking to the back of the store.

Haji starts after her. "Where—where are you going?"

"The dressing room. To try these on. _Relax._ I won't be long."

Exhaling, he stands down. Moments like these, he detests the paranoia that takes hold. Since the attack at Sakurazaka Street, he has kept a steady vigil over her. Realistically, he knows there is no need. She is fine, and can handle herself. But other times there is no stopping the dread that rises through him. That something will snatch her away. That she will run away herself, tired of his pestering and prowling.

Haji's understands his impulses are rooted in love. But it is a sad configuration of it. Even here, he cannot love except as her watchdog.

Sinking into a pouf by the changing-room, he does a sweep of the area, instinct meeting habit. As a boy, he'd learnt to channel the chameleon in himself, to blend into places where he was otherwise unwelcome. In the war, he'd learnt to harmonize, to match the flows and connectivities of each location, until disguise became his defining principle.

 _Be neither here, nor there,_ as his grandmother once said.

Scanning the store, Haji keeps an ear to the dressing room. It is full of chatter and rustling fabric. He hears other women, with sisters, friends, mothers, most of them oohing and aahing and critiquing the gowns. He hears the thump of Saya's heartbeat, aligned with his own. She is singing to herself, fragments of an off-key tune that nearly make him smile _._ _She keeps Moet and Chandon/In her pretty cabinet/'Let them eat cake' she says/Just like Marie Antoinette…_

Then he feels it.

The _zing_ at the base of his neck.

 _Trouble._

Without twitching a muscle, Haji lets his eyes trace the periphery. Someone— _something_ is nearby. Watching him.

His eyes go to the hot spots first. Back of the store: three girls, late teens, in T-shirts and shorts. Speaking Mandarin. Probably tourists from Mainland China. Threat probability: low. Left corner: one man, middle-aged and paunchy, with his adolescent daughter. American accents. Nothing alarming. Right corner: two shopgirls, both twenty-somethings. Dressed to the nines, and gossiping in swift Japanese about an absent coworker. Again, nothing to set off his alarms.

Yet something hangs in the air. A tinge of energy—dark, menacing. Sunlight pours through the boutique windows. Bouncy music plays on the speakers. Yet Haji feels like a chilled veneer has dropped over everything.

Then, at the corner of his eye, he glimpses a newcomer.

A man. Tall and lean and wide-shouldered. He wears a navy blazer, a white buttondown shirt, dark khakis. They hang well on him. Yet Haji gets the sense they were tailored for a stockier man. As if they've been borrowed, like his scuffed loafers, on short notice.

But if the attire is ill-fitting, the man doesn't show it. He moves with the strong strides of a Viking crossing the fjords. His reddish hair curls well past the collar of his shirt. His face is all angles—sharp-cut and almost regal—but what Haji notices is the gaze.

The man has heterochromia. His eyes are different colors. One red. One blue.

They give him an uncanny, almost preternatural air. Like a demon.

The newcomer slips through the jingle-belled door without sound. He crosses the store the same way.

Without sound.

Haji watches him peruse the gowns on display. His mismatched eyes skim across them carefully, taking in each detail. He looks intrigued by the fabrics, the designs and textures. Yet he also appears to be marking time, or doing a superb impression of a man marking time.

 _Perhaps he is waiting for someone_.

 _Or perhaps he is bored and dropped inside for something to do._

And yet it doesn't explain the vibe he gives off. Haji has spent decades observing other people, cataloging dangerous auras. He has learnt to differentiate the wolves from the sheep.

No one can fully conceal a lifetime's intimacy with violence. The most toughened men are the easiest to spot: gangbangers, ex-cons, soldiers like Vicente who radiate trouble beneath the boyish bonhomie. A second breed, as well-acquainted with violence, are the ciphers. Men like Sachi, who exist as blurs in the photograph, yet look like they belong anyway. Part of the big picture. The third type, the hardest to spot, are the shapeshifters. The ones who don't invert their vibe so much as reconstruct it into a softer persona. Predators who are so adept at hiding that they could be mistaken for prey.

Haji knows this type because it is what he and Saya are.

This stranger telegraphs the same aura. Something in his eyes, the angles of his face, his body-language, that doesn't quite fit with the rest of him. Something the conscious mind doesn't recognize, but which the primitive mid-brain flags as unusual.

 _Who is he?_

Haji rises and cricks his neck, the motion casually choreographed. The stranger's head turns his way. Haji knows it would. Movement always draws the eye.

When their gazes meet, the stranger nods, politely. Yet there is something in his eyes. Something almost... mocking.

As if—

"Well. What do you think?"

Saya is back. Her hair is rumpled from shimmying into and out of the gowns. But her smile is like wavering candlelight.

She is wearing the pink gown. Her shoulders swell up smooth and peachy from the off-the-shoulder neckline, marred only by the straps of her brassiere. The skirt hangs in flounces; evidently there will be petticoats to give it fullness. The bodice fits awkwardly in a few places: there are hooks in the back that she has buttoned haphazardly. On her feet, she still has on her dusty pink sneakers.

Altogether she looks nothing like the Saya of the Zoo.

Yet so lovely for all that, maybe lovelier because of it.

 _Don't say 'nice',_ her gaze warns. _Anything but 'nice.'_

Haji smiles instead. _Beautiful._

Pleased, Saya declares the gown her final choice. At the counter, while the salesperson wraps the purchase up, Haji gets out his wallet. "Let me buy this for you."

"No, please." She smiles, but her eyes reflect discomfort. "My clothes, my cash. That's the Rule, remember?"

The Rule. Of course.

Sighing, he backs down. While Saya pays for the dress, his eyes, for the briefest moment, flick across the store again.

At the door, the bell jingles. The red-haired man has exited.

Yet in his wake, a stale miasma of _Threat_ remains.

* * *

By the time Saya has picked out shoes, jewelry, and other accessories, the tension of the mysterious encounter fades—but isn't forgotten.

Haji keeps it at the back of his mind, a fishbone caught between the teeth of his thoughts, worrying at it until it is dislodged. A leftover habit from the war: back then, he and Saya were always under threat, ready to attack or be attacked in turn. Even now, there are times when Haji feels the new world they inhabit is no less volatile; its predators as deadly as genocidal Chevaliers and shadowy organizations, the sunlit familiarity a deceptive cover for the darkest shadows.

Or perhaps it's simply Saya.

Now, as then, her safety is the fulcrum of Haji's existence. The catalyst to joy or despair.

Today, joy is foremost. They walk together down the crowded streets. The sun hangs low in the evening sky, hitting the buildings at a rich golden slant. Saya licks an ice-cream cone—vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. Sometimes she stops to offer Haji a bite, giggling at the daubs of vanilla on his nose. The sound of her laughter is pure sweetness.

He's taken the shopping bags from her, and taken the outside of the sidewalk so she can traipse freely—one of the small, automatic chivalries he's been raised to abide to since boyhood. Yumi and Yuri often tease that he's _Old-fangled_. By which they mean he still follows the unspoken etiquette of another century: holding the door open for a lady, offering her his seat on a subway, never referring to an acquaintance by first name unless invited to, seldom cursing or engaging in foul talk when in mixed company.

The well-bred gestures of Old Money—which is hilarious because he is anything but.

He and Saya stop to watch a street performance at the sidewalk, and he thinks: _Case in point._

The trio performers—barely teenagers—are doing acrobatics for a small crowd. Two of them, in colorful leotards, are balanced on tall unicycles, circling in smooth arcs around their audience while juggling a handful of flaming torches at terrific speed.

In their circle, their youngest member plays a rock tune on a traditional _sanshin_ , his fingers furling across the strings with the flickering swiftness of a card-deck shuffled.

Watching them, Haji recalls another life. The creak and sway of crowded caravans. The precarious voyages off the edges of the map, a nomadism fueled less by wanderlust than necessity. Mornings with the horses nudging him from sleep on sour-smelling hay. Afternoons spent chopping firewood, hauling water, hunting game, and caring for his younger siblings. Evenings spent camping along the outskirts of cities, enacting feats of derring-do for crowds. Nights with his family crowded around the campfire, mutton roasting and beer flowing as they counted their earnings.

His tribe were _Руска_ _Рома_ —Ruska Roma, hailing from the predominantly-Muslim Caucasus. Not pureblood, _tacho_ , by any means: Haji's genes were a scrambled egg of intermarriage, his father's ancestry the yolk of dark-haired, dark-skinned Rom Xoraxai, his mother's a paler albumin of Xaladitka. Haji had inherited the raven hair and long-legged build of one, and the fair coloring and blue eyes of the other.

 _My sweet mariki_ , his mother would tease, nicknaming him for the traditional flatbread pastry. _My whey-faced boy._

 _Please!_ his grandmother would scoff, scooping Haji into her arms. _Not a pinch of salt in the gadje's faces. My boy has all the cream—and twice their spice._

His family made good use of his paucity of pigmentation. In marketplaces, his older cousins made him the bawling distraction for merchants, while the rest of them fanned out and stole fruits from their stalls. During performances, they'd make him the cherub-cheeked lure. Solemnly enticing strangers to come closer as the performance unfurled, and convincing them to happily part with their coins afterward.

But they'd had to be careful. Stereotypes of 'gypsies' as baby-snatchers abounded in every city. If authorities suspected—on the flimsiest of visual proof—that a child didn't belong to a Romani tribe, they'd take him away, no questions asked.

 _Maybe it's better that way?_ his father had sometimes brooded. _He'd have an easier life._

Haji's mother always protested to such talk, even daring to raise her voice. But his father always silenced her by asking if she'd rather see her son starve.

Which wasn't too far from the truth.

Haji's last few years with his family were hard ones. Three cities had barred their tribe entrance. The fourth's had destroyed their caravans, killed their livestock, and brutalized his brothers and sisters, forcing them to retreat to the woods. _Go back where you came from, filthy gyppies_. They had lived for a while off the land, but the winter was harsh, and the animals sickened and died.

Those last frozen months, Haji remembers that everyone was hungry. He'd caught birds, squirrels, even worms—but it was never enough. The emptiness of his belly had sapped away his strength, turning his thoughts to white-noise.

The well-dressed _gadje_ from the city came not long after.

Haji remembers them standing at the edges of the camp, as if disdaining to come closer and sully their expensive suits. Their eyes sized up Haji as one might a calf to be slaughtered. After exchanging a few words with his father, one of their burly guardsmen had stepped into the camp, seized Haji's arm, and hauled him off.

Too shocked to think, Haji had struggled, kicking the man's shins and biting his fingers. In answer, he'd been struck sharply on the mouth. Tasting blood, Haji had called out to his parents. They hadn't answered. As the man hauled him off, he'd craned his neck, searching for them.

They stood at the door of their caravan. Watching, doing nothing. His mother had tears in her eyes, and his father had averted his, staring at the heavy loaf of bread cradled in his arms.

Then the man flung Haji inside a carriage, and slammed its doors shut.

Haji remembers that day without bitterness. Time has dulled the ache; the bright solace of Saya's company erases it entirely. He would go anywhere for Saya. It must be so if he is here, years and miles later, watching the graceful orbits of the jugglers, the flames from their torches leaping like firecrackers into the rosy sunset.

Saya sighs, enthralled. "They're _good_."

"They are."

"I wish I could try that." Pouting, "I've gotten no _real_ exercise in ages."

He crooks a brow. "We could remedy that at home."

She flushes at the intimation. "Not _that_! I meant—like a spar. Or a fight."

"A fight?"

Since the ugliness at Sakurazaka Street, they've kept such exertions to a minimum: lights workouts and _katas_. Haji privately hasn't thought her ready to resume anything more violent. And Saya, sensing his reticence, hasn't pushed.

Until now.

"We could do a few rounds afterward," he concedes. "As long as—"

"It's not too strenuous. I _know_." Sighing, she finishes the rest of her ice cream. Her eyes return to the jugglers. Quieter: "Don't you ever miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"Traveling. Coming and going as you please. Being _free_."

He gives her a look mixed with curiosity and care. "I am hardly in chains at the moment."

"Yes, but—you know what I mean. You were a normal person once. You could live where and how you chose. You'd moved around since you were a boy, right?"

"Yes." He hesitates. "That was different. My family went only where it was safe to go. Often, that was nowhere. So we had no choice but to ingratiate ourselves with the locals."

"Ingratiate?"

"With performances like these. With dancing and fortune-telling." A bitter half-smile. "If you dress up your strangeness with charm, you become a caricature. People are less inclined to see you as a threat. But they will never see you as a person, either."

Saya's eyes darken with sympathy. Over time, she's collaged together stories about his past, each with a strict degree of self-censorship on Haji's part. But that doesn't mean she's incapable of making inferences about the darker remainder.

"Charm, hm?" she says, having a half-hearted go. "I saw none of that when you came to the Zoo. In fact, one of Amshel's biggest complaints was how a boy trained to fake smiles could be so bad-tempered."

That gets a _real_ smile out of him. "He was my captor. Not my audience."

"We were all your captors, weren't we?" Her mouth droops at the edges. "They bought you for me like a plaything. And I was so selfish, I didn't even realize it. I made your first few weeks absolutely miserable."

"As I recall, I made it no easier for you."

"That's different. You had every reason to be angry. Taken away from your family and sent… someplace awful." She sighs. "Afterward, I had all these plans to make you feel safe. To _take care_ of you. But the longer we've known each other, the more you've taken care of _me_."

Her gaze is downcast as she says this, betraying the heaviness of retrospect. Gently, Haji touches her arm, easing her away from the precipice of memory.

"I would not take back a moment of it, Saya," he murmurs.

The lines of her face relax, but not entirely. "But don't you ever miss it? Your old life? Your real family?"

He frowns. "In the early days, perhaps. When the culture-shock was at its worst. But less and less as time went on." He reaches out to fit his palm to the curve of her cheek. " _You_ became my family. My entire world."

Her eyelashes dip, pink splotching her cheeks. She isn't used to soft-talk from him—even as tame as this. Her pleasure with it makes her bashfully girlish.

It's a side of her Haji hasn't seen before. A century spent at her side, yet it astonishes him that there are still gaps in his understanding of her. Sometimes he even has the fanciful idea of her as living a double life, a secret second life, like a mysterious black cat that slips out to prowl the streets only after dark.

 _A woman's mind in a nutshell,_ Joel would say.

It's not so simple, of course. Her psyche still bears the scars—fading but visible—of past traumas. Yet that makes the moments where she opens up to him all the more pricelessly sweet.

When the performers conclude their act, he and Saya applaud with the rest of the onlookers. The boys pass around a hat, working the crowd for money. Haji places a ¥2000 note into the pile of coins, the equivalent of $20.

Saya glances at him, then turns away with a smile.

"Spendthrift," she says, and they resume strolling.

"Oh?"

"When it comes to buskers and the service class. Otherwise the twins say prying cash out of you is like pulling teeth."

"I was not raised to live extravagantly." A beat, "Although perhaps it is time to start."

"Start?"

He skims his knuckles along her arm. "I was hoping to spend the royalties from the _Philharmonic_ on you. A few gifts, perhaps."

Flinching, she jerks away. "Don't do that. Please."

"What?"

"I already feel like a pet cat in the villa. I don't want to sponge off you on top of that."

This stuns him. "Saya—you know that isn't—"

She turns away. "Isn't it? It's not like I have a job of my own. Or income pouring in so we can pool our resources, like other couples do. All I do anymore is this nutcase-life-of-leisure…"

Haji winces inwardly at the _Nutcase_ , but lets it go. "There is nothing wrong with resting, Saya. Not after everything you have endured. Nor is there any harm in pursuing other interests. I had hoped..."

"What?"

"With the war over, I had hoped to spoil you a little. To see you indulge yourself, with a clear conscience."

Saya's eyes darken, mouth a twist of discomfort. "'Clear conscience.' Is there even such a thing?"

"Saya—"

"Maybe it comes with other stuff? A purpose. A full life. Like the one you have with the _Philharmonic_. Or teaching at the university. No matter the state of your personal affairs, you've found a niche, haven't you?"

This is true, but it still warrants disputing, because it isn't so simple. "Just because I—"

"It's different for me, Haji. _This_ is different. Cosseting me won't fix it."

"But—"

"Please. Let's get off the subject."

Such a commonplace remark, as if they're lovers who've had tiff about finances, instead of two burned-out warriors whose sole purpose has fallen to pieces with the conclusion of the war. They've always been a well-matched fighting pair. But in the rout and rush of battle, it's easy to neglect certain issues. To fail to understand each other, and the peculiarities of their relationship.

Now they are in a new setting, playing out complex roles beyond anything their past has prepared them for. In the space left by their collapsed identities is inequality and uncertainty, which Haji can only avert his eyes in the face of.

Except that gesture evokes his father, who'd turned away from the cries of his son, head bent as if there were more important things in the grand scheme of things. Like a loaf of bread.

Nothing is more important than Saya.

Breaking the stricture of old habit, he catches her arm. They are at the tranquil garden-square of Fuzhou, right where it edges toward Naminoue Beach. To the villa festooned with blue roses, another reminder of the inherent strangeness of their lives, their selves.

But also a reminder that the past needn't eclipse the gift of the present.

"Perhaps it is too soon for a clear conscience," he says. "Or perhaps it will never be clear. But do not deny yourself happiness for its own sake, Saya. Not because your guilt dictates that you atone for the rest of your life."

Grimness edges her expression. "So I should forget the past and just live off you?"

"I never said that. But I do believe I am permitted, after all these years, to share with you everything I have."

"How is that fair? I have nothing to share with you in return."

Haji stares at her. "Do you truly believe that?"

"It's true! What else do I have to offer except—"

In answer, he gathers her in. The evening wind flirts with their dark hair, tangling it together at the tips, and the sky is its deepest red, a fiery spread pricked with luminous stars. The contrasts replicate themselves in Saya's eyes, blood and brightness, and Haji lowers his head and kisses her with a tenderness that is purely reflexive, both of them folded close in the quiet square and uncaring of anything else.

Breaking off, he puts his lips to her ear. "Do you feel wrong when we do this?"

"W-what?" No," she breathes, dizzied.

"Then it shouldn't matter either, what makes you happy. Or how you live your life—as long as you do." He touches his forehead to hers. "Please, Saya. Take it from someone who has come from nothing. There is no virtue in suffering endlessly. Such an existence is lonely and wasteful."

Saya won't look at him. But she doesn't break away either. "I-I know. It's just—it's too strange. Pretending to be normal. Pretending nothing's changed."

"Then do not pretend. We cannot be normal as other people are. We both know that. But that does not mean we cannot be ourselves."

She bites her lip.

"Can't we, Saya?"

Her body is taut with residual resistance. But in her eyes, like a needle of hope pricking the surface, love wells into a drop of blood, a fire opal of purest life. Poised to fall between them, to shatter and leave stains. Or to be caught up in a heartfelt promise.

Then her eyes slide past his body, and she stiffens. "Oh God."

Haji turns. In the pale nimbus of the street-lanterns, a dark shape uncoils through the grass. A _habu_ —the poisonous pit vipers endemic to the Ryukyus. Their mating season begins in the early summer, so it isn't unusual to glimpse them near woodpiles, rocks or greenery. Phantoms hiding in plain sight.

This one is different. Jet-black, and unsettlingly long. The longest snake Haji has ever seen. Its scales shimmer with the hallucinatory radiance of gasoline rainbows. It glides forward the same way, a liquid spill, its body whispering along the grass.

In the dying sunset, its eyes are peculiarly blue.

"That's—" Saya whispers.

"What?"

"That's the snake I saw. When we first drove up to the villa."

He absorbs this with a frown. "It is not native to the island."

"What?"

"It resembles a _tokarahabu._ But it is bigger than any I have seen. And the eyes—"

She nods, unnerved. "They're so blue. Like they're glowing from inside."

"Perhaps it is an exotic pet." He slips a hand into his coat pocket, drawing out his phone. "I will call the neighborhood snake catcher—"

"Or maybe it's not a snake at all," Saya whispers.

"What?"

His Queen doesn't answer. Her eyes have a faraway, filmy quality. As if she is suspended in a dream. A strange energy—bright-dark, hot-cold—crackles in the air around her.

Then Haji feels it again.

That _zing_ along his nape.

 _Trouble._

On reflex, his eyes flick to where a man is standing at the far-corner of the garden. Away from the drowsy ambit of the streetlight, his shadow stretches in a serpentine twist across the grass, the body a solid mass of blackness.

Like the snake itself.

Haji can't discern his features: they seem fluid, distorting and reshaping themselves in the flickering gloom.

Yet there is a cold impression of mismatched eyes.

Haji's eyes narrow. _Is that the same man from the boutique—?_

"Oh!" Saya gasps.

Refocusing, Haji follows her eyes to the snake. It has vanished. Yet Haji catches the sense of shapes, cartwheeling and cavorting, in the granular edges where light erodes into dark. He swears, for a split-second, he sees… things. Faces. They coalesce from thin air, solidifying and dissipating, a swirl of eerie movement, a spinning orb, a starburst shadow, gathering force and charging at him and Saya—

He jerks.

But there is nothing there. The grass. The streetlights. The sunset.

The snake is gone. And where the mysterious man once stood, there is only an ambiguous veil of shadow.

* * *

"A circus animal?" Kai suggests, later at the villa.

"It might be."

"We could always put a message out. Maybe there's a reward? Like five years ago, remember? For the rare anaconda who ate a pet cat."

"Perhaps."

"I'm more worried about the weirdo at the park." As he speaks, Kai field-strips his firearm, the disassembled parts spread out across an old newspaper on the table. Each movement is methodical, as if preparing ingredients for _champuru_. "The cops are on high alert already. First that double-murder at Uruma. Then a doctor at Lester Naval reported that his fiancée was missing. And on top of that we're still not sure who attacked Adam…"

Haji nods. "There has been a spike in violence lately."

"It could mean trouble. Or nothing at all." Kai crooks a brow. "What if the guy following you was a reporter? With the concert coming up, the city's buzzing with paparazzi."

"As troublesome as serial killers."

They are in the villa's basement/training-area. Both side-by-side at the worktable, Haji cleaning his daggers with a whetstone and damp rag while Kai performs Sunday-night maintenance on his M1911 pistol.

The training-room, far from a dank subterranean box, is sterile and well-lit, like the inside of a refrigerator. Heavybags hang like slabs of meat from the ceiling. The floors are a smooth white marble, temperature-controlled and padded with tatami mats. The walls are arrayed with weapons: scimitars, scythes, sais, swords.

In the fluorescent glow of the sparring platform, the twins, and their Chevaliers, are playing a ball game: part cross-spar, part keep-away. It is noisy and energetic—V propelling through the defense with the force of a speedrail to fling the ball into the hoop, Yuri taking a fantastic ballerina leap to knock it away in mid-air, Sachi cutting her off with the shutter-snap choreography of a dragonfly, only to be blitzed by Yumi's crashtackle, the gas in her pistons explosive.

The air vibrates with their shouts and screeches.

"On your left, lazy butt!"

"C'mon Yuri! Knock his block off!"

"Your _other_ left, god-fucking-dammit!"

"Foul! Foul! No elbows! _Isaidnoelbows_!"

Kai watches them with a dry, uncomplicated pleasure. "They're like that old song…"

"Song?"

"Y'know. The fight song. The street fighting one."

Haji frowns. "Street Fightin' Man?"

"No, the other one." Taking the gun barrel, Kai runs a solvent-wet cloth down the bore. "From that Jackie Chan film. The Kung Fu one."

"They are _all_ Kung Fu films."

"Not the film. The _song_. Kicks were fast as lightnin', womp womp, little bit frightening—shit, now it's stuck in my head." Kai hums it with an off-key implacability.

Haji sometimes thinks the younger man would've made a good jukebox. For the Spanish Inquisition. "The Carl Douglas one?"

" _Bingo_." Kai snaps his oily fingers. "Catchy. Yet borderline racist."

Haji raises a brow. "I assume you have never heard _Brown Sugar_."

"That by Carl Douglas too?"

"The Rolling Stones."

"Oh. _Those_ guys. Aren't they still alive? I heard they're touring Japan this year."

"Maybe they're Chiropterans."

The men glance around.

Saya has light-skipped down the stairs and into the training-room without Haji hearing her come in. She is dressed in jeans and a faded pink T-shirt, her newly-washed hair scraped back in a sloppy ponytail. Looking at the smooth Sayaness of her face, it is impossible to tell that anything unusual occurred during their outing earlier.

Yet the shaded dips of her eyes and the tautness of her shoulders give Haji hints of what she is trying to conceal, a body zitzing with unease. She'd been quiet when they'd come home. She drank the smoothie he'd whipped up for her without enthusiasm, then spent a long time alone in the bath. Haji had listened through the door to her splashing quietly, sometimes mumbling to herself, and wondered if she was trying to appear calm for his sake.

The sight of the snake—mystifying, menacing—had clearly rattled her. Nearly as much as that unknown man had troubled Haji. If he shuts his eyes, he can still see the sharp-etched silhouette, loaded with sinister portent…

Which is ridiculous.

The snake probably escaped from a zoo. And the man was just an ordinary stranger, one of the hundreds whose path crossed Haji's and Saya's each day in the city.

 _I am imagining things._

 _That is all._

Then he meets Saya's eyes, and falters. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Except her gaze, heavy-lidded and red-rimmed, refuses to orient on him. Tension fizzes off her. "I was just, um—"

"Yes?"

"I was hoping for a spar."

"With the twins?"

"With you." Her smile sits awkwardly on her face. "You promised a hand-to-hand, remember?"

"What? Right now?" Frowning, Kai finishes cleaning the excesses from the bore of the gun. "I was gonna move the party upstairs. Whip up _rafute_ with BBQ sauce."

"In a bit," Saya says. Then she glances at Haji. "Come on. You can have your pick of weapons."

"Weapons? Saya, there is no need for—"

"Please?"

She jitters in place, as if powered by ten cups of coffee. Sighing, Haji makes himself relent. Maybe this is her way of taking his earlier conversation to heart? About navigating normality as it suits her. Maybe she's tired of being treated like a dainty doll, and wants to prove to them—to herself—that she is fine. The attack on those men in Sakurazaka Street was a fluke. She hasn't lost her grip: on her mind, her body, or the moment.

He tells himself it is a good sign. An exercise in trust. Yet something about her manner is... off-kilter.

A repression so forceful he can _feel_ it.

Kai breaks up the game between Yumi, Yuri and their Chevaliers with a paternal shout. They disperse to the sidelines. Their expressions are excited: the popcorn behavior of film buffs settling in to watch a cult-classic.

Saya and Haji take their place in opposite ends of the reed mat. Haji's daggers spin in his hands with perfectly-balanced precision. Ahead, he watches Saya shake her limbs loose, circling like a racehorse at the starting gate. She seems in good shape, all things considered: graceful, no stiffness.

Kai tosses a rapier from the rack at her. She catches hers neatly, pivoting it in her hand like an expert bladesman.

Then proceeds to nearly skewer Haji with it, before he adjusts his expectations, and counterblocks. Steel meets steel with a shrill _clang_.

"Saya. It is proper to wait for the _en garde_ —"

Her rapier flashes like lightning, whistling scant millimeters from his skull.

" _Prépare-toi, en garde, soit bon_."

Again, her blade zigzags in the air. He evades on tenterhooks. She is as _fast_ as ever.

" _Comme vous voulez_ , Saya."

He half-smiles, but she doesn't. Instead, she slices through the air, charging at him like a ballistic missile.

Haji is aware of the rapt gazes of the twins and their Chevaliers. They hoot and cheer at first, but soon fall silent. Like him, they are comprehending that this is no friendly spar. Sparring involves trust and communication, like any two-way relationship. You trust your opponent not to ventilate you full of holes, and to not pull their punches at the same time. After the session, you communicate shortcomings and suggestions for improvement, egos set aside in an effort to come together and learn.

Saya isn't interested in that. She is fighting like her life depends on it. Haji starts out not fully engaging, keeping it light and evasive, a demonstration for the audience. But Saya soon demolishes his distance, forcing him to recalculate his defense, until they are clashing for real.

The _cling-clang_ of their blades echoes through the training-space. Sparks flying, steel flashing. And Saya herself: radiating a ferocity Haji has only ever seen at the zenith of battle: scarily focused and blazing-hot, her eyes blank as a predator's. It disturbs him. Has she clocked-out again? Like at Sakurazaka Street? Like the night of the car-accident?

It would make sense. Except her form is phenomenal, her finesse unmatched. Good as she always is, this display is _extraordinary_.

Yet her face is a mask. Unrecognizable to him, as if beneath the familiar lineaments of Saya's features there sits a stranger. A powerful force, immensely old and deadly, pulling the strings of her muscles like a marionette.

Their swords cross with a _whang_ , spitting blue scintillas.

And she laughs.

A familiar laugh: high and exquisitely melodic.

Absolutely mad.

The hairs stand up on the back of Haji's neck. There is a hitch in his concentration—shock, disorientation.

Then Saya's rapier sinks into his chest.

It isn't a harmless graze. It drives right through, sliding between the space in his ribs. The blinding-red eruption of _pain_ sends him staggering.

In the next beat, he's knocked flat on his back.

Saya stands over him, rapier upraised, and is in the act of delivering the killing-blow. Behind her, Kai cries out, "Saya! Saya, _stop_!"

She looms over Haji, panting. Her glowy eyes give off a ferocious heat. For a moment, Haji is sure she will pierce right through his heart. Then she pales, and staggers back. Shock wrenches her features.

"Oh—oh God. _Haji_!"

The rapier clatters away. She drops to her knees, reaching to examine the torn hole in his chest, bubbling blood with each exhale.

Behind her, Kai approaches slowly. " _Jesus_ , Saya. What just happened?"

"I don't—I don't know." Her eyes are moist with tears, lower-lip trembling. From Boadicea to Alice in Wonderland in three heartbeats—stunned by a fall down the rabbit-hole of her psyche. "I didn't mean to take it that far."

 _Take what that far?_

Agony sings through Haji. Inhaling, he forces himself to sit up. The blow had missed his heart by a quarter-inch. With every pulsebeat, blood sluices out, first in messy gouts, then in a thinning trickle as the hole closes. If he weren't so accustomed to being Fate's pin cushion, he might—

"Ow."

He hisses through his teeth as Saya touches the ruined red pucker. Her face has taken on that stricken expression he never likes to see. As if something has spiraled beyond her control.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I thought—I could keep a lid on it."

Haji frowns. "Keep a lid on what?"

She doesn't answer. Kai, the twins and their Chevaliers are gathered in a half-circle around his splayed body and her crumpled one. Kai's brow holds that familiar furrow, his body-language wired, as if readied to draw a weapon or create a diversion. Behind him, Sayumi and Sayuri are uneasily captivated, as if witnessing the aftermath of a spectacular lightning-strike. Sachi has beads of faint sweat on his brow, and V whistles, half-horrified, half-admiring.

"Doesn't play around, does she?" he mutters. "Killer Queen through and through."

Saya winces, dropping her head. Haji wants to tell V to shut up.

Instead, he brings up the cradle of his palms to Saya's cheeks. She blinks wetly, and shivers. Her eyes meet his with a hangdog bleariness, and something in him aches, a deep-down throb that has nothing to with the wound.

"Keep a lid on what, Saya?" he repeats gently. "Did you... have a flashback?"

She shakes her head.

"What then? A black-out?"

He halfway hopes she'll say yes. That would explain everything: the aggression, the disconnection, that spine-crawling _laugh_...

Again, Saya shakes her head. Tears spill past the gummed spikes of her eyelashes. Sobbing, she falls into his arms, and Haji encircles her close, crushing her to his chest without a care for the seeping wound. His eyes meet Kai's over her dark head. The other man seems bewildered by the meltdown, and the blitzkrieg that preceded it. Haji himself doesn't quite understand what happened. He struggles to stay still, to control his questions, while Saya pours out against his chest an incoherence of misery that she has never revealed before, like something inside her in breaking.

"It's me," she gulps, the words ragged, wretched. "It's all me."

"Ssh."

He lets her unhappiness beat against him until it ebbs, rocking her gently and murmuring her name. Yet, as he closes his eyes, flotsam from the day clings to his mind... sunset and juggling torches, the dark slither of the snake, a stranger watching him with mismatched eyes, the candelabra-crash of Diva's laughter and Saya's face a pale knot of distress, all of it piling together in a heap of the darkest red within the present.

Pieces of an unsolved puzzle.

Or portents of future catastrophe.

* * *

 _Poor Haji. Impaled yet again..._

 _"Prépare-toi, en garde, soit bon" - The fancy way of saying en garde_

 _"Comme vous voulez" - As you like._

 _Regarding Haji's background: I've often headcanoned that his family was primarily Ruska Roma (With roots in Eurasian Caucasus) with the family fallen on dire enough times to warrant them selling their son to strangers. A lot of stink is raised about what 'race' the Romani are, which is silly because their ethnicities are fragmented across genomic and geographical lines, with different members of the Romani even arguing about whose heritage and definitions mean what._

 _For simplicity's sake, they're mostly of European and South Asian ancestry, which designates them as Caucasian. (In the US, the term in conflated with 'white' but it actually refers to populations from Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran... all the way up to Asia and the Horn of Africa.)_

 _Given that Haji would've been taken to the Zoo in the late 1800s, when the toxic categorization of scientific racism was at its zenith, a light-skinned blue-eyed boy would've been easier to accept into the family's fold, much in the fashion of passe blanc and plaçage. To this day, many Romani families live in paranoia of their fair-skinned children getting taken away on the pretext that they don't "look like" them - but in Haji's case it could've been a voluntary relinquishment to ensure upward social mobility._

 _That's my two cents, anyway. Let me know what y'all think!_

 _Comments are yummy and fill my fanficcing tummy! c:_


	14. Sprezzatura (Part I)

_Chapter 14! :D_

 _It was shorter than some of the others, so I got done with it early. Saya and Tórir finally meet - and weird freaky shit happens. Expect angst, fluff and flashbacks. The First Act is coming to a close in the next few chapters! I'll likely take a break before getting started on Act II, so here's hoping it's not overly long..._

 _As always, heaps of love for the feedback y'all are leaving this monstrosity. I do a little happy dance with each one! Your comments are so dear and delicious to me c:_

 _Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to review!_

* * *

The concert is held at the Shikinaen Royal Garden.

The University of Arts, in affiliation with the US Consulate, has set up brilliant white marquees across the space. The interiors of starcloth and chandeliers shed a crystalline glow across the elegant curls of chairs, the ivory tablecloths, the centerpieces of floating candle bowls with artfully arranged black-and-white roses.

The wide dais for the orchestra is outdoors, surrounded by lush grassland and cherry trees. Glimpsed among the silky pink boughs, the shell-shaped stage is a magnificent _pièce de résistance._

Drifting through the crowds, Saya is too overwhelmed to take anything in. She's seen the memorabilia of the _Philharmonic_ at the villa. She's watched old Youtube clips of interviews and concerts. She's pored through magazine clippings tucked into Kai's old albums.

Yet it doesn't prepare her for the scale of the event.

She is dumbstruck by the news-media crowding the parking-lot. Reporters and cameramen are _everywhere_. Chimera lights blaze; microphones and boom poles are arranged helter-skelter. The shouts in different languages create a claustrophobic haze where all communication is reduced to abbreviated sentences.

 _"The death of nuance,"_ Haji calls it—a struggle not to be understood but simply heard.

 _No wonder Haji wanted me to arrive with Kai instead of him_ , Saya thinks _. I'd be too freaked out by the attention._

 _Scratch that._

 _I already am._

In the gardens, it is thankfully private. Crowds of people eddy under the moonlight: brightly-dressed in gowns and dignified in tuxedos. The soft conversation floats skyward in an amorphous fog. Most of the audience is middle-aged, but Saya is startled to see several twentysomethings and teenagers.

Then again, the _Philharmonic_ has always been a friend to post-millennials. Fearlessly forward-looking, they continue to spice up their diet of antique favorites, such as Barber's _Adagio for Strings,_ with collaborations alongside up-and-coming artists.

Tonight, they will be performing, among the popular pieces in their repertoire, the works of a Japanese _enfant terrible_ with a taste for rock opera. Haji has played her some of the recordings during the two-week rehearsal. Saya was entranced by it: twinges of bass guitar floating like ghostly blue static over shimmers of violin, playful arpeggios of piano undercut by the purity of their mezzo soprano's voice rising at a high C for several bars before the chorus begins.

" _An avant garde migraine_ ," Haji said, but with a smile.

He's playing off the concert as no big deal. But Saya can tell he is excited.

There has been a gleam to his eyes the last few days, a low-key intensity to his manner. She's often caught him in the music room at the tip of dawn, playing cello with a magician's meticulousness to get the timing right. Other nights, she's been roused awake to hear him on the cellphone with the composer, or having long-distance tryouts on remote software with bandmates. In the afternoons, he is often gone on rehearsals. But when he returns, he always greets her with kisses of exceptional ardor—even for him—before sweeping her upstairs.

Lying dazed and trembling in bed afterwards, Saya gets the sense that he derives from these comings-together the same inspiration as an artist with his muse. Sparks of creativity infusing his body with every touch, stoking the complex engine inside him to keep him going for the rest of day.

It gratifies her. Moreso because it means he's forgiven her for the attack in the training room. Yet, going over it, she still experiences a full-bodied spasm of chagrin. She remembers the liquid squelch of her blade passing through his chest. Remembers the shocky blankness in Haji's eyes—and the piercing shards of her own laughter.

Except it wasn't her laugh at all.

It was _Diva's_.

Since that night, tension has kept thrumming through her body. Nothing eases it: not sex, not swimming, not snacks, not swordplay, not solitude in the solarium. Her dreams make it worse: a riot of hissing snakes and burning-blue eyes, her skin caked in blood the color of tar.

Portent? Delirium?

She isn't sure. Plunked down in her family's midst after thirty years, her own strangeness seems more pronounced than ever. She can't remember the last time she's done something with the certainty that it's what she's meant to be doing.

She can't tell Haji that. It will only worry him, and make him cut his work short. He will once again start suggesting travel, or sessions with a counselor. If she told him right this moment she wanted them both to go home, he'd obey.

Haji is always like that. Always attentive to her whims, in a way that licks at her imperious streak, but also reminds her how far they still have to go to being true partners.

 _So stop self-obsessing,_ she thinks angrily. _Just be happy for him._

She's made herself up with a jittery energy for the event. The twins have helped her: picking her jewelry, styling her hair, applying her make-up. Kai, upon glimpsing her outfit, has dubbed her _Alice in Pepto-Bismol Land._

But Saya likes the gown. The embroidered bodice, low and fitted, gives way to a skirt that is all festive flounces and flowering fullness owing to the plethora of petticoats. The material stirs around her legs as she walks, as cool as Haji's skin. The twins have put her hair in corkscrew curls, tied back at the crown of her head with ornate pins. Modest make-up: just a dusting of sparkly pink lipstick.

Haji hasn't seen her yet. He'd left the villa three hours earlier, to meet the ensemble and get last-minute details sorted out with security. Still, she hopes he'll like how she looks. She wants to appear vibrant, happy. She's spent too much time moping lately. It's got to be taking a toll on Haji—even if he never shows it.

At her shoulder, Kai remarks, "Finally, he gets to show off to you."

Saya blinks. "What?"

Irritably, he tugs a finger at his suit collar. Black tie events are still his least favorite type. "Haji. He's never been this revved up about concerts before. Even the one he gave at the goddamn _Met_ , way back 2026. I think he's just happy you're here."

She hadn't considered it from this angle. A pupil preening for their old teacher.

"Hai tai!"

She turns. Yumi and Yuri approach, tailed by their Chevaliers, and Deidra.

As always the twins are dressed as polar opposites. Yumi is in a bias-cut green silk that reminds Saya of a mermaid, her hair teased up into an impudently messy twist. In contrast, Yuri is a delicate vision in a pale blue sheath dress, an opalescent sheen to the fabric. String pearls dangle down her neck like chips of ice, parallel to her glossy straight hair.

Their Chevaliers, both in slim-cut suits similar to Kai's, seem hot and uncomfortable; V already has a mustard stain on his shirt, and Sachi has taken his jacket off and slung it over one shoulder. Deidra, behind them, looks both chic and practical in a burgundy pantsuit with black silk lapels. There is a daub of shimmering lipstick in the same shade on her mouth.

"Plenty of mosquitos here," she says, referring to the paparazzi. "Keep your guard up, Otonashi. Those fuckos try for upskirt shots. I'd rather not bodyslam anyone and ruin my suit."

Saya winces, "They'd do that?"

"They try anything to get a rise out of the ensemble," Yumi snorts. "It's why Haji stopped taking us on tours. One time, in New York, a reporter made some nasty remark while we were leaving the hotel. I don't remember if it was to me or Yuri, but..."

"Haji punched him," Yuri sighs. "And broke his nose."

"Oh yeah. I remember _that_ legal rigmarole," Kai grumbles. "It's why he prefers staying in Okinawa. No reporters except when there's a high-profile scandal."

"Or an event like this," Dee says.

Saya frowns. This is a nasty underbelly of fame Haji hasn't mentioned. But he talks so rarely about the _Philharmonic's_ heyday. Maybe he doesn't want to upset her with the negatives. Or maybe he doesn't want it to seem like the effort it obviously is.

 _Sprezzatura_ —isn't that what Joel used to call it? A nonchalance meant to disguise one's true thoughts behind the mask of effortless grace.

 _He's like that in other parts of his life too._

She hasn't considered that before. She'd been so swept up in the war. No thoughts beyond: _Defeat Diva._ No thoughts, certainly, of Haji, beyond his pragmatic utility.

But now, the balance is changing. In odd moments, Saya finds herself trying to pin down the elements that make Haji _Haji_.

She's known him since he was a boy. Yet even now, his subtle personality reveals itself in ways so minute they're almost imperceptible. Sometimes Saya thinks there is a vault in him, locking him from inside out, making an enigma of the true contours of his mind. Her oldest friend, the same face she's seen for decades over coffee, over war strategies, during train journeys, between firefights…Yet a part of him remains hidden, below the surface, beyond the radar.

A trick of survival? A disguise—even from her?

 _You're being silly._

 _You know him. All the important pieces of him._

His cello-playing. His faultless aim. His favorite symphonies. The laxness of his posture when his mind goes on standby. The steadiness of it when his interest is sparked. His loyalty. His patience. The silky length of his body. His scars, fine as Chantilly. The way he growls when she bites his neck, and the rest of him. The way his kisses taste of something sugar-heady or chillingy astringent depending on his lip salve. The smooth baritone of his singing voice, which comes out only when he is in the shower. His wry sense of humor, which only she is privy to. His protectiveness, which shows in his uncanny attunement to everything around him.

His love, which is the substructure that braids all the other elements together into the shape of _Haji_.

Yet there is so much more of him to unpack.

Maybe—here's a thought—he's waiting to follow her lead? Waiting for her to put down roots somewhere, so that he can do the same. Maybe, one-fifty years from now, they will feel safe enough to leave bits of themselves everywhere, without feeling under threat from all angles.

 _One-fifty years from now..._

Saya marvels at the trend of her thoughts.

Behind her, the twins gasp as one. "It's started!"

The rig lights at the stage are dimming. The massive LED screens in the background flare to life. Saya is aware of an almost arboreal silence settling over the gardens.

At the shores of the shell-pale stage, the _New Viennese Philharmonic_ float in like sea monkeys. There are thirty-five of them in all. Of the original ensemble, twenty, including Haji, still remain.

Saya finds her Chevalier in the first row. Like many of the ensemble, he's accessorized with a blood-red diego—Okinawa's national flower—pinned to his lapel. His black suit is a sharp-cut Fresco; beneath is a white shirt, silk and matte. His hair curls in tufts barely a degree more artful than when she tugs fistfuls of it in bed. They are styled to hide his scars; while he isn't self-conscious of them, he seldom cares to flaunt them in public.

Haji, with rarity, doesn't see her. He is busy tuning his cello with a mathematical precision. Eight of the twelve compositions feature his solos. Now, as then, he is one of the MVPs in the ensemble.

The second, a prodigy in her own right, is their soprano—a raven-haired beauty whom Saya vaguely recognizes from magazine covers and Youtube ads. Her voice has been lauded as this century's Maria Callas: she sings with the smoothness of a fife.

Heartsick, Saya thinks of another voice. A high, pure melody drifting from the Zoo's tower—one she'd first found serene, then terrifying. It still creeps into her dreams now and again.

But lately it is different. The most comforting song she knows.

She glances at Sayumi and Sayuri. Both girls' faces are uplifted to the stage. They look strikingly like Diva in that moment. But also like Riku: eyes wide and lips parted, childlike in their joy.

Gently, Saya twines her arms through both of theirs. She feels closer to Diva—to the stolen possibility of her—when the twins are beside her.

Their group moves with the flow of the crowd toward the tables. Saya and her party have front seats. Not the vantage Saya usually favors: she likes an unimpeded view of the territory, the entrances and exits. But this event, exclusive and deluxe, offers the kind of camera surveillance that tends to inhibit trouble.

Usually.

At the stage, the composer takes the podium. The music begins: a soaring rendition of Vivaldi's _Four Seasons._ The sounds the ensemble make, amplified by the subtle acoustics of the stage, achieve a shimmering complexity that reminds Saya of a colorful rose blossoming in the darkness of space, each petal a different hue. And, laboring at their violins, harps, flutes and oboes, the _Philharmonic's_ players are crofters, transforming the gardens into Elysian Fields.

"Damn," Kai mutters. "I forgot how good these guys are."

Good, Saya thinks, is an understatement.

She is transfixed by the luminous clarity of the sounds, by the dazzling close-ups and transitions on the screens. The _Philharmonic_ seem less like a collection of people than oiled parts of an intricate machine. An illusion, she knows. According to Haji, rehearsals are an ordeal because there are members who will throw tantrums before even _sitting_ next to each other.

But on stage, for the audience, they appear insulated from petty human emotions. All they exist to do is play, in perfect harmony.

 _Sprezzatura_ incarnate _._

When Haji's solo begins, Saya breaks into goosebumps. Under the blazing lights, he is—as she recalls one article describing— _Almost bewitchingly brilliant_.

He plays the solo for the _Dvo_ _ř_ _á_ _k Concerto op. 104._ Foregoing the romantic frippery of the allegro, he plunges straight into the highwaters of the B and E major, lengthening them into a rapturous rise and fall, and then stirring up a stormy tempest in grandioso. His cello gleams with a rich luster, bow flashing. In the spotlights, across the screens, his hair is a baroque frame within which the picture of his face is redefined into the classic, brooding beauty indistinguishable from the music itself.

Then his blue gaze flicks upward, a smile flitting across his lips. A smile that Saya hopes is for her... but if charisma was shaped into arrowheads, half the women in the audience would drop dead in a swoon.

Later, with Victoire, he plays _Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5_ by Heitor Villa Lobos. They harmonize gorgeously: Victoire's voice fluting to dizzying heights like a spire of light, chased by the abyssally dark sweetness of Haji's cello, before everything blurs together and explodes into glittery fragments of crescendo.

When the performance ends, Saya cries " _Bravo_!" along with everyone else. Standing among the crowd, she's almost forgotten her own disconsolations. She's even forgotten Haji, although she stares raptly as he rises to take a bow. His presence is incidental, just one piece in a marvelous architecture of music that rivals the Château de Versailles itself.

"Bravo!" she calls again, and the word is overlapped by a man standing beside her.

Blinking in surprise— _how did he get so close?_ —she finds him smiling, not at her but at the stage.

He is tall. Nearly as tall as Haji, and as pale. Beard stubble glitters coppery red along his strong cheekbones, and his hair is the same shade, falling in a smoothly disheveled tumble around his face. His sharp-hewn, almost Nordic features remind Saya of the Viking romances she used to read at the Zoo. As does the body, concealed elegantly in a black tux, yet solid as a mountain range.

Most unusual are his eyes. In the multicolored LEDs, they glow two different wavelengths. One red like infrared beams, the other blue like ultraviolet radiance.

They are the most entrancing eyes Saya has seen.

"Bravo!" he says, clearly moved.

And, catching her gaze, he smiles.

Saya feels a frisson of something. Familiarity? She smiles back, uncertainly. Yet it seems like she is smiling at an old friend. Someone who understands everything there is to know about her, and is as intimate with her as...

"Divine, yes?" the man says in English. His voice, though masculine, is smooth and songlike. He carries a trace of accent that she can't place.

"Yes," she says. "It's my first time hearing them—" _If not Haji_ "—in person."

"Mine as well." He sighs. "Not the finest stage. But ... does it matter when the talent is the finest of all?"

"That's true."

"Are you a friend of Haji's?"

"Wh-what?"

He smiles again. His mouth is a curious shade of pink. Full and plush and pretty, yet there something familiar about it too.

It is just like Diva's.

Disorientation knits itself inside her. It isn't the first time her mind has cobbled together Diva's features with those of a stranger's. She still spots her sister in crowds now and again: a girl on the streets with dark hair so glossy it is like a mirror, an overflowing laugh, a pale curve of arm or leg. Except it is never Diva.

Never like this.

"I-I'm not sure what you mean," she stammers.

The man's smile widens. "I spotted you with him earlier this week. At a boutique. I was running errands nearby."

"Oh." She isn't sure what to say to that. The man's gaze is a rueful acknowledgement that even if Naha is a big city, the world remains so very small. Clearing her throat, she says, "Do you—want his autograph?"

Chagrined, he shakes his head. "I-I would not dare! I've always believed... that is not the point of these events."

"Then what is?"

His grin is all toothy white irreverence. "Making 'joyful noise'. Is that not the phrase? The world is so full of ugliness. But it is good to remember that human beings can also come together and create beauty."

Saya finds herself smiling back. "That's a very philosophical attitude."

The man's eyes shade under a fringe of pale lashes. They remind Saya strangely of a spider's web. Stranger still is her impulse to trace a fingertip along the translucent spikes...

His voice calls her back to the moment: "You are quite cynical for one so young."

"I'm older than I look," she blurts, then wants to bite her tongue.

But the man doesn't follow up with the nosy _So how old are you?_ He chuckles, an easy diffusion of the awkwardness. "Yes. I thought you might be."

The familiarity of his tone should be worrisome. He gives off an energy that is scintillating, volatile, wicked. Or maybe it's those mismatched eyes that make it so? The dark one seems alive and on fire, the blue one appearing to float in its orb, not quite moored, like a circlet of ice at sea.

"Wh-what do you mean?" she stammers.

"Something about your expression. It glazed over each time the ensemble played a new piece. But Orff, Dvořák, Chopin... your entire face came alive. Contemporary frivolity seems not for you."

He smiles again, and Saya feels a flustered blush creep in. Why does she have butterflies in her stomach? (Or is it the flutter of adrenalized acid?)

She draws herself up, arching a brow with as much spirit as she can muster. "Did you spend the entire performance studying my face? Or the stage?"

He mirrors the brow-quirk, a quiet _Touché_. "When distracted between two intriguing things, I have learnt to... to..." He pauses, searching for the word, "Multiplication-task?"

"Multi-task."

"Hm?"

"Multi-task. Not multiplication-task. I don't think the latter is a real skill."

"Spoken like a true hater of mathematics!" Then he chuckles, softening the remark. "Nor am I, truth be told. I prefer the languages. The more obscure, the better."

"Oh? Are you a linguist?"

"A stunted dream, sadly." A droll moue—half-farce, half-tragedy. "I am an internist by trade. Though I dreamt of being a polymath as a boy."

"Polymath?"

"Not a mathematician." He doesn't elaborate, but there is a creeping amusement in his eyes. As if they are playing a game. "Perhaps I have stumbled upon another. Tell me. Can you translate this? If-yay ou-yay standunder-yay, ay-say 'standunder-yay'. If-yay ou-yay on't-day standunder-yay, ay-say 'on't-day standunder-yay'. Ut-bay if-yay ou-yay standunder-yay and-yay ay-say 'on't-day standunder-yay', how oday iyay understandyay atthay ouyay understandyay Understandyay?"

It takes Saya only a moment to rearrange the jumble of words. Tongue twisters were an old favorite of hers at the Zoo. And Hog Latin is child's play to a girl weaned on French _Louchébem_ —the best way for her and Haji to pass messages about future mischief under Joel's watch.

"If you understand, say 'understand'," she answers. "If you don't understand, say 'don't understand'. But if you understand and say 'don't understand', how do I understand that you understand? Understand."

He claps his hands together with a satirical solemnity. "Onderfulway . Iyay aketay ymay athay offyay otay ouyay." Clowning aside, the admiration is sincere. "That took you barely eight seconds. You have a marvelous command of the English language."

English is hardly the only language she is fluent in. More like the seventh. But she isn't going to tell a stranger that.

"So do you," she says, half reflex kindness, half sincerity. "The only words I hear from Americans lately seem to be 'Awesome' and 'So, like, basically.'"

The man throws his head back and laughs despite himself. The sound is like the audience's applause—a thunder-rumble of exuberant joy. "I will assume you are not American."

"Do I sound like it?"

"No." He tilts his head, a sharp-eyed scrutiny. "You sound like you are from nowhere at all. Or everywhere at once. It is curious."

The intensity of his gaze unsettles her. She fumbles for a reply. "I've… spent time overseas. You learn to blend in."

"Yes. The great talent of travelers." A beat. "Or troublemakers."

"Pardon?"

"People so careful about blending in are usually avoiding trouble. Or stirring it up." His eyes twinkle as if in a private joke. "Which are you, I wonder?"

"Both." It comes salted with humor, but thinly. He is getting too personal, too fast. Worse, she is permitting it. "Anyway. Sometimes trouble just finds you."

"So it does. Especially in times so troublesome to begin with." His humor fades. "Luckily, we have our consolations."

"Such as?"

"Food. Music. Nature." Softer, "Family."

She is struck by his brooding stare, as if he is trying to find his way safely through a trap opened between them: a pitfall of shared grief. Which makes no sense.

At the stage, the _Philharmonic_ soak in the adulation of the crowd. The spectral stage lights lend a dreamy definition to the players and their instruments. And from that light, the trick of Haji's distant shape is celestial, almost intangible.

Someone who isn't from her world at all.

Her new acquaintance follows her gaze. "Brave."

"Hm?"

"Brave of him. To seem so at ease on the stage. Even with all those eyes on him." In wry wistfulness: "It brings to mind an old Italian word. I think they call it—"

"Sprezzatura?" It comes from her mouth with no anticipation.

"Yes! That's the one!" His pleased little smile is almost boyish. "The gift of making the impossible appear easy. A talent of courtiers in the old days. Except it was not only the Italians who favored the quality. The Great Bragi himself extolled the virtues of masking craft as spontaneity."

"Great Bragi?"

"My patron saint." He winks. "He was a bard in the Norse pantheon. The Giver of Inspiration and the Maker of Music. Not a warrior, but a peacekeeper. He wandered the Nine Worlds, instilling in his audience the ideals of cooperation."

Saya tips him a faint smile. "A philosopher, _and_ a historian? Is that what a polymath is?"

"I-I never said I was a polymath!" Charming abashment shows on his face. "I simply enjoy the _Philharmonic's_ oeuvre. In fact, it was Haji's solo—the _Fantaisie Impromptu_ —that first drew me to classical music."

"I'm starting to think you want Haji's autograph after all."

"Far from it." He ducks his head, coppery hair swinging forward to shield his face. His pale cheekbones are mottled pink. Not as smooth an operator as he'd first come off, clearly. "The best way to honor Bragi is to not to pester, but to support those in the performing arts. That is the purpose of this event. Am I not correct?"

Against her will, Saya's smile deepens. Something about this man pulls her senses oddly off-kilter. Yet he has a timely way, whenever she suspects his machinations are less-than-pure, of tilting his head a degree to the right, so the gloss in his mismatched eyes softens, and the angles of his face rearrange themselves into a quirky moue of playfulness.

Briefly, she makes note of his hands. Unusually large, the knuckles ridged with a tracery of scars. A fighter's hands.

A superstitious chill sluices through her. She forces it down.

"Are you, um, a longtime resident?" she asks.

"A new arrival. I work at the Naval Hospital. Yourself?"

"I—" _Have no idea what I do anymore._ "I'm visiting family."

That, bittersweetly, is true.

He nods. "That would be the group there, yes? With the twin girls." He hooks a thumb at Sayumi and Sayuri. They are whooping loudly, caught up in the moment.

"Ye-es."

Why does she feel unsettled when he looks at the girls? As if she needs to protect them?

Then his mismatched eyes return to hers, and the strange feeling intensifies. "Lovely," he murmurs. "They resemble you. Your sisters?"

"No." Calling them her _nieces_ is a stretch: the three of them appear the same age. What polite fiction would go over easier? "Cousins. First cousins."

"Have you any siblings of your own?"

"No." For a moment, the honeycomb cells of her brain dissolve, memories of Diva pouring in a sticky spill. She forces them down. "Only child." Then, in a polite deflection, "I don't think I caught your name?"

"Ah! Pardon my manners." He holds out a hand. "I am Tórir."

"Saya."

She is surprised by the way his palm envelops hers. It is cool like Haji's. Yet something about it sends a foreboding flicker through her.

Their eyes meet, and for a fraction of a second, Saya feels as if his consciousness is surging up to meet hers, a backwash as intensely black as ink. Her mind blurs with his, a porthole swinging open both ways, her memories swallowed by his own...

 _...An island at the icy zenith of the sea. Flakes of white snow and grass of such enchanted green that the rims of her eyes burn. The clouds shift over the sun; castles of white and black are dappled in shadow, monoliths like chess pieces piled together. Below, villages glow, heat radiating off them. Roomfuls of people laughing and drinking and singing. And screaming, screaming, screaming as the armies come, men on foot, men on horseback, men with wings, an eclipse of darkness fallen upon the land. Fathers cower, mothers sob, rows of young boys are lined up like toy soldiers. Some are chosen, tearful and trembling, dragged by ropes like livestock, their parents wailing and wild and reaching for one last touch. Other boys are slaughtered under swords, their broken bodies sprawled in the snow as blood falls red…_

 _…Red as the eyes of the woman on a throne of oakwood etched with golden curlicues, her beauty that of animal cruelty, her silk gown a river of brilliant blue. Blue as the eyes of the woman twirling under the gray skies, the swish of her white skirts an arctic circle, a song rising from her throat until the airwaves resonate with her power. And then the same woman flung to a bed of dirty straw, chains at her wrists, her blue eyes reflecting shock and then nothing as six shadowy men surround her and someone's boot slams into her ribcage. And the woman with red eyes spinning to decapitate a swordsman, ducking to evade a spear, leaping to impale a soldier, her body a comet tearing through the battlefield and her face streaked with blood and her mouth open in a scream that becomes a throbbing red cyst in Saya's skull..._

 _And slicing through the vision, the black snake. Its hiss fills her ears._

 _Saya._

Her fingers break away from Tórir's. Her consciousness floods back with a staticky abruptness.

Inhaling, Saya steadies herself. Ahead, Kai, the twins, even Dee are still enrapt on the stage. No one notices her lapse.

But Tórir is watching her strangely. "Are you all right?"

"Ye-es." She swallows. "Just a little zone."

"It might be all the flashing lights. They are quite overwhelming. Would you care to sit down?"

"No. It's—it's fine."

She takes a step back. Her knees wobble, and she nearly falls. Reflexively, Tórir grabs her elbow. No foreboding flash this time. His fingers curling across her skin are comforting. A caress.

"Miss Saya," he says. "I hope you have not been... what do the Americans call it? Hitting the sauce."

"Sauce?"

"You know. Soaked. Sozzled. Stewed. _Schnockered_."

Saya can't help it. She laughs—a wheezy, involuntary laugh, a release of the awful tension inside her.

"No," she says. "No sauce."

"Perhaps you should have some," he says, adopting a physicianly tone. "Actual sauce. With food. You may have low BP." He glances around. "They are serving _rafute_ at the stalls. Perhaps I could..."

"Mr. Tórir," she says, caught between gratitude and exasperation. What is he, a Chevalier? "I'm okay."

"You will not fall?"

"Not hard enough to break anything."

She gives him a meaning nod. _You can let go now._

He obeys, a smooth retreat of his body that makes hers retreat too, not like strangers forced away from unwelcome intimacy but like two old lovers dancing a gavotte. The air is buzzing with voices. Circles of light pulse in disorienting bursts on the stage.

Yet, staring into Tórir's blue-brown eyes, Saya is strangely, deathly calm.

Like an executioner readying their axe. Or a fallen monarch kneeling beneath it.

"Are you sure you are all right?" he asks.

She nods. There is an impulse, utterly bewildering, to place her forefinger to his lips and quieten him.

 _...As she has done many lifetimes before. Under the blue curve of the sky and in the cool darkness of the bedchamber. In affection, in anger. She has spoken of things both profound and paltry with him, has clashed with him in humor, in heat and finally in hatred, a mother seeking to destroy her corrupted child before he corrupted the entire world in turn..._

The feeling passes, leaving Saya unsettled. Staring into the mismatched eyes of a man who is an absolute stranger—yet not.

"Saya."

She whirls.

Haji is there. From being an untouchable titan on the stage, he is all at once a gentle guardian right at her side. Their eyes meet. It is like a spell being broken: he fills her entire field of vision, and some dark thing inside her dissipates.

"Haji!"

"Are you all right?"

"I-I'm fine. How did you get here so fast?"

He hesitates. "It felt as if you were in distress."

"Not in distress." _Not exactly._ "I was just speaking with—"

She turns to introduce Tórir. But the space is empty.

Confusion laps at Saya. She glances around. But the man has melted into the crowd.

 _That's weird._

She barely gets a word in before the cameramen in the periphery spot Haji. Like a typhoon, they swoop in, thundering exclamations and raining camera-flashes.

Much to her family's dismay.

"Haji, what the _hell_?" Kai glowers at the flashbulbs. "You can't just fly in like that!"

"No one noticed," Haji says.

"The departure: _no_ ," Dee gripes. "The arrival: _yeah_."

Behind him, the twins cringe away from the cameras: Yuri under Sachi's jacket, Yumi behind V's massive shoulders. Spreading her arms out authoritatively, Dee shoulders between Saya and the photographers.

"No pictures, folks! Let the guy talk to his family!"

 _"Haji, can you confirm the rumors that the NVP are planning a new tour?"_

 _"Haji-san! Koko de mite kudasai!"_

 _"Est-ce que vous composez un nouveau record?"_

 _"Oi, Haji! Kono josei wa g_ _ā_ _rufurendo desu ka?"_

Dazed, Saya stumbles. Haji circles her in protectively.

"Forgive me, Saya," he whispers.

"Wh-what?"

"You will be in a few tabloid rags tomorrow."

Bit by bit, Dee steers the photographers away. Security arrives to take care of the rest. Saya's mind still goes snap-crackle-pop to afterimages of the cameras. But she welcomes it.

 _Anything_ is better than the disturbing vision earlier.

 _God, what's wrong with me?_

Is this what it feels like to go insane? Or has madness—true, bone-deep lunacy—settled inside her the moment she'd killed Diva? Certainly, the guilt dogging her afterward feels like insanity itself, the cracks spreading outward so slowly she can almost forget they're there. Maybe that's how craziness takes hold: chunks of yourself breaking off not with a sense of menace but inevitability.

Saya closes her eyes. There is a temptation to glance around for Tórir. She resists. Tells herself that the strangeness of the encounter—like the vision itself—is just her imagination, and not a catastrophe which eludes understanding.

Until it is too late.

* * *

 _Hai tai: How the gals say 'Hello' in Okinawa. The male equivalent is 'Hai sai'_

 _Next few chapters deal with Saya's ambivalence over Haji's fame - and her ambivalence with her new life in general. Expect Tórir to be slinking around in the sidelines, causing more trouble..._

 _Hope y'all are liking the tale so far! If the chapter fell flat - or if you wish there's certain elements I'd explored, feel free to let me know! Feedback is yum! c:_


	15. Sprezzatura (Part II)

_Happy Friday! :)_

 _Continuing with the Unnecessarily Long Concert Arc! Saya reaches an unpleasant epiphany, Kai's love life is Complicated™, and Tórir stumbles upon something interesting..._

 _Hope y'all enjoy! There's two chapters left for Act I, after which I'll take an itsy bitsy breather before forging ahead with Act II! Thank you so much for sticking with this tale so far, and for all the delicious feedback and gifts on tumblr! I can't tell you how happy it makes me - and how much it revs me up to churn out the next installment! With patience and perseverence we will get through this 40+ chapter monstrosity! (Hopefully...)_

 _Review pretty please! :)_

* * *

Concerts, Saya learns, do not finish with the unfurling of stage-curtains and the performers retiring back to their hotels to sleep the sleep of the just.

As with the complexities of assembling any giant machine of sublime function, equal time takes to disassemble it. Classical music is a world of guidelines. From the axioms during the performance itself (never glancing around if someone messes up a note, never shuffling pages during someone's solo, signaling praise only with a positioning of feet), to the rituals at the end, (knowing when to stand in tribute to the conductor and when not to, discerning when the applause dies down and the ensemble can exit), its codes are as challenging to crack as the Victorian _Language of the Fan._

Speaking of _fans_... there is a long, long, long line of them.

With the concert finished, the ensemble retired to the dressing rooms for a powder. Now they take their seats at a news-conference table at the marquee, Haji among them. Reporters and fans posit questions; the ensemble or their spokesperson answer.

Saya watches from the sidelines, jealousy and outrage blurring together, as her Chevalier fields interrogations that strike her as nearly obscene in their nosiness. _Are you dating anyone?—Any raunchy tour stories to share?—Is it Botox that keeps you looking so young?—If you could kiss any of these five celebrities..._

Haji never grows irritable. He projects, despite his aloofness, a quiet irony, as if he and the speaker are mutual acquaintances sharing a joke. Sometimes, their high-spirited violinist, with a toss of his floppy-fringed hair, cuts in with a wisecrack. Other times Victoire, their mezzo soprano, takes over, tartly charming with her witchy green eyes.

They have a gimmick, Saya realizes. One no different from their choreography on-stage. It isn't artificial: when the players banter back and forth, they speak affectionately, with anecdotes and nicknames. Victoire even has one for Haji. _Sale petit Cagot._

Its very matter-of-factness is a mark of intimacy—and it bothers Saya.

It bothers her more that Victoire can't seem to keep her flirty hands off Haji. They glide to him often: his shoulder, his arm, once even the back of his neck as she spouts off a little pop aria for a fan, the pitch rising dramatically into high camp without once losing its operatic flair.

Later, the same fan asks for a picture of them together. They oblige: Victoire's arms around his waist, clinging tight, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. Haji's own hand is placed with scrupulous correctness between her shoulderblades, yet so familiar for it. Like he touches her there often.

Saya's gut-shock of jealousy becomes wrath.

 _I will kill her_.

Immediately she feels a spasm of shame.

God, is this how indelibly the madness has sunk in? To contemplate murdering a harmless woman? She is by nature selfish: Haji's attention, always turned toward her, is such a fixture in her life that she's begun to feel entitled to it. But if another woman—surely just a friend?—monopolizes him for a minute, what's the harm?

Hasn't Haji placed his heart and body and very life on the line to prove he is _hers_?

Then she hears Diva's voice in her ear, _Yours, for now._

 _But what about once you're gone?_

She flinches.

Things were different in the war. She could envisage him fighting the good fight, his mind on the mission. But what about now? She is absorbing, in skin-crawling stages, that he isn't simply _Haji_ anymore. Fortune and fame hang distastefully on some people: ugly wardrobes, zany fads, lapses in common sense. Haji wears his with the same cool blandness as one of his suits. All stripes of well-connected people share their orbits with him now. Strange to imagine. Haji—her overgrown playmate, the street urchin, the wandering minstrel: a success.

Will it drive a wedge between them? Has it already done so? All the choices are his for the making now. Money, travel, sex. After her Long Sleep, what's to stop him from going astray? Her Chevalier is nowhere near as cold as he lets on—emotionally, sexually. His intensity is like a ripcurl beneath a midnight sea. Calm on the surface, but if you get close it will drag you down beyond resurfacing.

Saya doesn't want to resurface. It is the darkest spaces within the water that have always enthralled her.

 _But what if he gets bored of_ me _?_

 _What if he meets someone better once I'm gone?_

 _What if—_

Saya shuts her eyes. She is getting a blinding headache.

"You okay?"

Kai plunks into the seat beside her.

She jerks. "Y-Yeah."

"You sure? You look like total crap."

"…wow. Thanks."

"No. I mean it." He meets her eyes squarely. "What's up?"

"N-Nothing." She tucks a dangling curl of hair behind her ear. "I'm just ready to go home."

"Before dinner?" Kai sounds appalled. "Are you even _Saya_?"

"Mm."

Her usual enthusiasm for sparring has deserted her; she can only manage a listless shrug. Kai notices, and frowns.

"Look. Try one dish. _Aiai_ is catering the food. Their _shabu shabu_ isn't as great as Dad's. But it's not bad."

"Really?" Her flagging spirits—and stomach—perk up a little. "With _shiitake_ mushrooms?"

"And _nori_."

"Well. Maybe I'll try a _little_..."

He relaxes visibly, his universe restored to its proper function. "There ya go. No one can live on jealousy alone."

"Wh-what?"

He shrugs. "Just sayin.' If looks could kill, Victoire would be _shabu shabu_ herself."

Chagrined, she drops her gaze. "Is it that obvious?"

"Hey. If it's obvious to _me_ , then Haji's probably sweating in his suit."

"He doesn't look like it."

"He never looks much like anything." Kai makes a gesture with his hand to mimic a broken fan or curly pasta. "Those impalings in the war probably did it. Knocked his facial-muscles offline."

"Ha ha."

He smiles, wryly sincere. "Not his brain, though. I promise he and Victoire are just old friends."

"How do you know?"

"Back in 2027, she and her family sometimes visited Okinawa. They'd stop by for lunch at Omoro. She was just a kid then. Barely nineteen."

"She isn't anymore."

His smile fades. "She's not. But Haji's the same old Haji."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning if you so much as stub your toe right now, he'll come crawling out of the woodwork."

 _Will he?_

She is so accustomed to thinking of her Chevalier in absolutes: Haji _always_ defends her, Haji _never_ deserts her.

But what is to say those absolutes can't evaporate as swiftly as anything else? Nothing lasts forever. Even as hers and Haji's bodies stay uncannily youthful, time washing over both of them without erosion, they aren't immune to changes on the inside.

Everything about her Chevalier evokes home, safety, sanctuary. Yet there are times when Saya feels her own place with him slipping precariously, the hourglass' inevitable shift from past to present to future.

But what future is there? Barely three years together: an illusion of belonging as she tries to resume her so-called life. She does nothing terribly important these days, yet time flashes by anyway, days melting into weeks. Into years. Then _poof_. She'll be gone again.

How can that be enough to sustain a relationship?

The idea chews relentlessly at her nerves, even when dinner is served. She eats on autopilot, the food like chalk in her mouth, her smile a flickery phantom as she chitchats with the twins, with Kai, with Dee and the boys. Their banter sweeps her through the evening, coasting its surface.

Afterwards, a string quartet (not the _Philharmonic_ ) plays catchy contemporary beats. Under the marquee's glitter-ball and shimmery black lining, couples whirl. The twins promptly hoist their Chevaliers into the crush. But Saya is content to play wallflower.

Her mind is mottled with exhaustion; between the mystifying vision and her anxieties about Haji, she is verging on meltdown.

Kai and Dee, noticing her funk, try to distract her. But Dee's gaze travels now and then to the dancefloor. Saya feels a stab of pity. The young woman has been guarding her diligently during the concert, warding off opportunistic paparazzi. Surely she'd like to take a break?

"Miss Dee," she says. "Why don't you dance?"

"Huh?" Dee glances up from her drink—the same black-and-tan that Julia once favored. "No way. I'm all left feet."

"That doesn't matter once you're on the floor. No one pays attention."

Dee arches a brow. "Planning to teach me, Otonashi?"

"W-well, no. But maybe Kai could—"

"No thanks."

Kai's answer comes almost before she says his name. Is it her imagination, or does he seem ill-at-ease? Without meeting hers or Dee's eyes, he lurches out of his seat. "I'm gonna take a walk. Work off that big meal."

"Um—" Saya begins. Beside her, Dee's smile twists in place. "Your appetite always did exceed your willpower."

Kai winces but doesn't answer. Sketching a hasty salute, he exits the marquee.

Saya and Dee watch him go. The other woman is frowning. About what, Saya can't say. In the interior twilight, her blue eyes hold an unhappy gloss. Then she blinks, and it dissipates. Rising, she extends a hand to Saya.

"C'mon. Show me some fancy moves."

"Wha—?" Saya blinks. "I-I didn't think you were serious."

"Dead serious. I've read my Dumas and Balzac. I know you guys danced your way straight into the 20th Century. Stands to reason you'd remember a few steps."

Saya squirms. "Well..."

"It's better than working that thousand-yard stare, Otonashi. If something's bugging you, it's better to burn it off."

"...Um. Right."

Hesitantly, she takes Dee's hand. The other woman's grip is pleasantly strong. Saya fights down a blush.

 _I've chopped down enemies twice my size and been stalked by a lunatic in an opera mask and been whisked off to Manhattan by a lovestruck Chevalier._

 _Holding another woman's hand is tame by comparison._

Dee draws her into the dance-floor. The music is a fast spin-gig, violins sounding off in bright streamers. Saya lets Dee steer her around, then vice versa, both of them awkward at first, trying to get a feel of the beat, and each other.

Then the jammed gears of their bodies click into the right rhythm. A little chortle escapes Dee, and they are matching steps, gliding around each other in a sleek figure eight, linked together by their palms. Couples dodge out of the way as they cut a wide swathe across the floor, the smarting dark-red of Dee's suit like dried blood, Saya's own diaphanous gown a milky smear of it.

She can feel the glances of strangers on them—aghast, amused, envious. She ignores them. Dee's fingers are warm on hers, and the thick fringe of her hair tumbles across one eye. Saya watches as she pouts her lower-lip and blows a _whoosh_ of breath upwards. Blond hair flutters off her forehead, luminous in the disco-lights, and Saya feels warmly punch-drunk. Not attraction, _per se_ , but caught in the playful sensuality of the moment.

By the time the next song rolls in, they are exchanging laughs—Saya's shy, Dee's full of rare delight.

"Damn, girl! You're _good_!"

"Muscle memory, I guess."

"May I cut in?"

Haji is at the edge of the dancefloor. The Philharmonic has concluded their press-conference. Its members have dispersed across the banquet hall. Saya can see Victoire flitting around the salad bar like a glitzy hummingbird.

Forcibly, she jerks her gaze away. "Wait your turn. The dance isn't over yet."

Haji crooks a brow. "A Game of Flats, then?"

"It suits me better than Patience."

Dee glances between them. "Should I, uhm, leave you guys alone?"

 _No. Yes_. Saya doesn't know. Her eyes meet Haji's. Predictably, her heart stutters, robbing the savor from her modicum of power over him. The only power she has left, fading day-by-day into the inevitable…

Then he says, "Please?"

As always, his sincerity strips away the imperious facade, leaving her trembling bare on her axis. She hates that he can have this effect on her. Yet his presence is like sanctuary, no matter where they go.

Dee lets go almost sheepishly, like she's stumbled into a big-league game with its players already chosen. Saya tries to catch her eye as the other woman slips past her, maybe to reconfirm for a heartbeat their brief connection. But Dee's eyes slide past her with a perturbed glint before she quits the dancefloor.

 _She's as preoccupied as I am._

 _But about what...?_

Then Haji's hand takes hers.

It is the softest shock, her whole body going from static to depth-charged. He draws her into the dancefloor. The air is dense and heated, yet his touch is deliciously cool on hers. The dancers in the glow sway back and forth, and the music is unrecognizable to Saya. Yet everything imparts a nostalgic aura of the Zoo, a ghostly layer of memories from their childhood.

Her feet don't collide with Haji's the way they did with Dee's. There is no stop-and-start as they learn each other's rhythms. His arm encircles her, her free hand clasps his shoulder, and then their bodies are moving in a graceful rise and fall across the polished floor.

In the half-dark, Haji's skin is luminous. His eyes are the same, and so soft. They skim across her with familiar slowness, before tactile replaces the visual caress. He smooths her hair, skims his thumb across the curve of her cheek. Sighing, Saya closes her eyes. It should feel strange, and awkward, and unreal. She hasn't danced with Haji in over a century, and never in circumstances like these.

Yet it doesn't matter. Their bodies remember one another: secrets shared without words, a connection both vital and unceasing.

 _Sprezzatura_.

With Haji, it isn't a studied art, but an effortless mode of being.

They go through five more songs, as smoothly as if they've practiced each step. The room's acoustics are distractingly loud, but she no longer hears them. Silence is Haji's natural state, and each time she falls into it with him, she is grounded in a semblance of peace. Her Chevalier is not immune either. By degrees, she watches his face change. Something melts away from it, a distance so indelible she hadn't noticed until it is gone. Armor—not against her but the cacophony of the gathering.

Now it vanishes, his features smoothing out. By the time the string quartet reels off its final number, they both are cinched together like in their childhood. Two halves of a whole—Haji's hand a cool comfort clasped in hers, his forehead resting against her own.

Like her, he has always found his solace in the tactile, the tangible.

"We should never have stopped," she whispers.

"Stopped?"

"Dancing. After we left the Zoo."

His eyes go pensively soft. "We were at war."

"I know. But sometimes I wish—"

Haji leans down to kiss her, soft, sweet, interruptive. She shivers and goes still.

"I prefer now to then," he says. "It makes what we have twice as valuable."

"What we have." Lip bit, she can't quite meet his eyes. "Does that include you too?"

"What? Saya—of course—"

She'd not meant to bring this up, and her stomach clenches with shame. Yet she can't stop the words from coming. "Y-You've just been so busy this whole night. I know it's not on purpose, but—"

"Ssh." He circles her in closer. "Forgive me. We need not do this again if you disliked it."

"But this is your _life_. You can't just—"

"I will do whatever is necessary for your happiness." He nuzzles her hair. "Did you at least enjoy the performance?"

She hears the boyish hopefulness in his voice. It reminds her of when he'd do magic-tricks or handstands for her as a child, prompting _Did you see it, Saya? Did you, did you?_

Wistfully, she smiles. "I couldn't look away."

"I meant the music."

She pinches his arm. "You _know_ it was perfect, you vain thing. All the women were swooning. Half the men too."

"Were you?"

"I was... happy." She tucks her head under his chin. "Happy to be there, and watch you. I'd never have thought you'd look so at home onstage."

"The stage is my least favorite place."

"Then what's your favorite?"

He strokes his palm from her spine up to the curve of her nape. An instinctive soothing that is an answer itself.

Saya smiles. Then, more hesitantly, "Something… weird happened during the performance."

"Hm?"

"I was talking to this man." She says the words, and watches the minute concern in Haji's face. She hastens to reassure him, "Nothing icky. But I got the strangest feeling. As if—"

" _There_ you are!"

Victoire has made a reappearance. Up close, she is twice as attractive: tall as a Dian and filling out her tailored black gown with the same statuesque grace. Her hair is the same variant of Haji's, a darkly curling tumble that she manages to make look both sophisticated and sexy.

Grasping Haji's sleeve, she pulls him in. "A little bird told me a representative from Sony Records will be at the after-party. If it means what I think it means—"

"I heard," Haji says. "But nothing is confirmed yet."

"I'd say it's confirmation enough if—" She notices Saya at Haji's side, and laughs. Her Japanese is smooth as crème de cacao. "Pardon me, _ma puce_! I just need to borrow him to talk business for a mo—"

"You can talk in front of me," Saya says. "I'm not a reporter."

"No, _no_. Of course not. Too young for that. But we wouldn't want to bore you, sweet child—"

"I'm not a child, either."

"Huh?"

Haji steps in, less a maker of introductions than a peacekeeper. "Victoire. This is Saya. Saya—"

"Victoire. I know." She smiles with as much decorum as she can muster. "How do you do?"

"Oh, very _well_!"

Victoire shakes her hand. But her eyes have taken on a shrewd appraisal that makes Saya feel like a flowery pink dishrag.

"So _you're_ Saya?" she says. "Haji's old mentor?"

Is that how he'd described her? _Old mentor_? Her throat clots, but she says evenly. "Among other things."

" _Other_ things?" Victoire's eyes and mouth make shiny little 'O's. "I see, I _see_. Is this why I've been seeing so little of you lately, Haji?"

Haji barely winces. "Saya is getting resettled into Okinawa. Her family live here. Kai and the girls."

"Is she staying at Omoro, then?"

"No. With me."

"So she's living with— _Haji_! When were you going to let _me_ know?"

Is that the sort of thing a bandmate would ask? Or an ex-girlfriend? Saya has no idea, and there is a stab of jealousy between her second and third rib.

Perhaps she should have asked Haji to introduce her to his social circle earlier? But things have been so crazy after her Awakening. She is still trying to establish a rhythm in her life, while being painfully aware she's all but disrupted her family's own routines.

Then Haji's cool palm settles on her shoulder with a proprietary tenderness. "I hoped to introduce the two of you at the next event."

"So: tonight." Victoire tilts her head in a way that makes her glossy curls sweep across one eye. " _Well_. No wonder you've been in high spirits these few weeks. I figured you'd just found a barely-legal Okinawan girl like the rest of the men here."

"Saya is quite legal," Haji says, in the blandest of tones.

"She must be. Your old mentor and all." There is cynicism in Victoire's voice, not entirely downplayed. "Dare I ask the name of your plastic surgeon, Saya? He must be a good one. You look so _young_."

"No surgeon," Saya says. "Just good genes."

" _Better_ than good, I'd say. The Okinawan diet living up to its hype."

"I guess so."

There is a beat in which the three of them glance at each other. The awkwardness of impending departure hangs in the air. Then, like a pretty pinwheel caught in the breeze, Victoire cycles to a different subject.

"Well. It was _lovely_ to meet you, Saya. We must do lunch together soon."

"Later, maybe," Saya says, in a tone that runs parallel with _When Hell freezes over_.

"Next weekend," Victoire says, undeterred. "I am _so_ curious to know how you two met. You don't seem Haji's type at all."

His _type_? Saya has no idea how to take that. Her pulse skitters, and Haji's palm tightens on her shoulder. She senses his wariness, and wants to rage into his eyes— _What is she talking about, Haji?_

Carefully, her Chevalier breaks the exchange. "I will check our schedule."

"Do that. Maybe we can try that nice Indian restaurant again. _Bollywood Jewel_ , I think it was called? You liked their _tikka masala,_ right? I don't blame you—very _lash_ _é-xamàsko_ _."_ Victoire chatters while digging for something in her chic little clutch. The word— _lashé-xamàsko_ —isn't French. Saya has heard Haji use it in their childhood—a _Bugurdži_ term for a savory food.

The tightening clench of her stomach makes her sick. There is no more natural route to the acquisition of a dying language, she knows, than sharing a bed. She's already made greater strides with learning her Chevalier's childhood tongue than she'd ever done during their little vocabulary games at the Zoo.

Before she can speak, Victoire tugs Haji's sleeve. Her backward glance at Saya is carelessly assured. "You don't mind if I borrow him, yes? We've a photoshoot soon, and I have a few questions to ask our make-up crew..."

"Um..."

"Saya?" Haji's eyes are on hers. Asking for permission.

Woodenly, she nods. "Whatever you like."

" _Thank_ you." Victoire pushes cheerfully past Saya, Haji in tow, her heels clicking on the tiles.

Saya watches them go. The pressure of the headache from earlier returns, doubling with the churning in her gut. Her mind runs in circles, thinking of Haji, Victoire, the conversation with Tórir, the bizarre vision, the snake that keeps hissing her name...

Hurriedly, she exits the marquee. Right then she hates everything about the place: its jangle of sounds, its blaze of lights. The sight of Haji and Victoire, both elegant as figurines on a gothic wedding cake, a star and starlet off to conquer the silver screen. For a moment she thinks it is envy that makes her eyes burn.

But it is just the shock of comprehending the dimensions of Haji's new life. His place in the world.

She misses her own, deadly and dead-end as it was.

 _Except it's not the war you miss._

 _It's Diva._

The tears come in a hot rush she cannot stifle. Snatching up fistfuls of her skirt, she takes off into the gardens.

* * *

 _There she is._

Tórir watches the little Queen racing through the grass. Hair flying like the mane of a wild mare, cheeks streaked with tears, skirts all a-tumble. The air vibrates with the tiny messages of her distress, little bubbles in a glass of champagne, fizzing and making her more delicious to him.

Hidden among the trees, Tórir takes a deep breath of her, and holds it.

The temptation to follow her blooms lush and irresistible. To talk to her again, to count the curls of her eyelashes and the flecks of red in her brown eyes.

During their conversation, he'd expected only trite elicitation. He'd discovered treasure.

She was more like the Red Queen than he'd first envisioned, and yet nothing like her at all: direct and cutting one moment, sweet and shy the next. The _life_ clinging to her body was irresistible, a shimmer like on the surface of a moonstone—and as fragile.

With the Red Queen, Tórir had held the essence of war in his cupped palms. Trapped it and kept it for himself, reducing the Queen to a berserker on the battlefield. His very own sleep-walking war-weapon. It's what he'd yearned for ever since he was a boy: mastery over the elements of Nature. Death itself turned into a puppet on his strings.

But _life..._

That is a beauty he's never touched.

The air is still, swirling with the red-and-black shapes of cinnabar moths. As a boy, Tórir remembers reaching for these same creatures with curious hands. Other boys his age had snatched heedlessly, crushing the creatures to powder in one clumsy motion. But Tórir was always careful. He'd chased them one by one, trapping them with delicate precision whenever they alit on a stone or a tree. He'd kept them in a roughly-burnished glass jar by his window, wings battering across its surface, their reds and blacks the color of blood-blisters.

Then, day by the day, those colored faded. Crumpled and forlorn, the moths fluttered to the bottom of the jar. Soon, they barely twitched when he tapped his fingers on the glass.

Then one day, they stopped moving entirely.

 _Sweet Saya._

 _How long will you last, once I take you?_

Behind him, the trees rustle. He hears disjointed voices, a man's urgent hiss dominating them.

 _"...telling you it wasn't a wild animal. Those guards at Yabuchi..."_

"Look, there's no way it was a Chiropteran. The three Queens in Okinawa are safe as houses. It couldn't be them, either..."

 _Chiropteran_.

Tórir's ears collect the sound. The word he'd found in the Red Shield boy's blood. What these humans—those privy to the secret knowledge—call Tórir's kind.

Intrigued, Tórir slinks through the treeline.

There, at clearing, a human man paces. An unimpressive specimen: thirty-five, give or take, but with an overweight teenager's awkward posture. Like most of the guests tonight, he is in evening wear, but he's taken his jacket off, and his shirt is patchy with perspiration. His flabby face is the same, the odd pimple or two glinting beneath a sheen of sweat; his head is topped by squiggly brown hair already thinning at the whorl.

Clutching at a cellphone, he entreats, "Look. We can try again. There's no reason to shut the lab just yet—"

" _No reason?! For all we know Red Shield's already been alerted. If they find us_ —"

"They _won't_. Look. Red Shield believes there've been no Chiropterans on Okinawa in years. Our specimen was emphatically _not_ a Chiropteran!"

 _"Excuses! The D67 base was exactly the same! If Red Shield learns of it—"_

"They won't. They have us on file. Just a harmless research facility. Nothing to worry about."

 _"Unless we're harboring threats to public safety! You still don't know what killed those guards—"_

"Because it was a wild animal. C'mon, Jordan. It _had_ to be. We haven't heard a peep from it since. Nothing in the news. No unusual sightings—"

 _"What about the mother and daughter in Uruma?!"_

"What? The gang attack? C'mon, Jordy. Chiropterans aren't known for porking their prey—"

 _"What if it wasn't one of_ your _subjects. What if—"_

"What if _what_? It was a monster risen from the dead? Hibernating in the cave? You're being ridiculous. Those security guys were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's no reason to pull the plug on our research—"

 _"There's too many risks, Carsten. Too much money sunk into this. It's gone pear-shaped—"_

"It hasn't. Jordan, I swear. I'm on the verge of a breakthrough. I just need a little more time—"

 _"I've been hearing that for two years now. Sorry, Carsten. I've had enough. So have the trustees."_

"Jordan, _please_ —"

 _"No, Casten. It's done. Cobbling a miracle cure with leftovers from Cinq Flèches' data is risky. Experimenting on volatile subjects is plain suicidal. Your latest failure proves it. The board is fed up with seeing no results. They're not tossing in more good money after bad."_

"It won't go bad! I swear! I'll expedite the process! Within a year, I should—"

 _"No can do, Carsten."_

"Wh-what're you saying?"

 _"I've received a notice from the board. You're being cut loose."_

"Jordan, no—!"

 _"Sorry, man. You're on your own."_

"Jordan—Jordan, hold up—!"

The crisp _click_ of disconnection.

The human stares at his phone. A stifled noise trembles and dies in his throat. Not a curse, but the whine of a cornered animal. Tórir is amused by the reek of distress pouring off him—a syrupy foulness that combines adrenaline with plugged-up sweat.

Truly, the scope of human ridiculousness is infinite.

Except the man's bulk or his funny noises don't interest him. No, this man was talking about the island Tórir had arisen from. The cave that had kept him trapped for centuries. Yabuchi—with its itchy-dark caverns and its bitter reek of fermented rot. The place overrun with _habu_ snakes that had been Tórir 's saviors, the thin gruel of their blood keeping him nourished.

The place where, lifetimes ago, his final showdown with the Red Queen had occurred.

This human doesn't know about any of that. But he knows about Red Shield. About Saya and her nieces. About Chiropterans.

 _Can he be of use to me?_

Hard to credit that a creature the exact proportions of a larva can be of use to anyone. But Tórir's judgement—sounder than the whims of Wyrd—has rarely led him wrong. He has seen stranger days, and known stranger people. Beneath the unsightly flab, he suspects the human has a mind as sharp as any.

So he makes his decision, and smiles.

Smooth as shadow, he steps out into the clearing. The earthy bed of dead leaves crunches under his shoes.

"Good evening."

The human hears him, and whirls. Clumsily, all that fat blighting perfectly good meat. His eyes bulge in their sockets, mouth comically unhinged. "Je-Jesus!"

Tórir's smile widens. A fangy menace of a smile. In the darkness, his eyes glow phosphorescent blue.

"I could not help overhearing your conversation," he says. "I was hoping... you could share more."

* * *

Saya finds refuge beneath the lacework of cherry trees.

Speed had swept away her tears, but now her eyes feel hot as embers in their sockets. Panting, she slumps against a wrought-iron bench. It is quieter here: a few guests roaming down the garden's stone pathways, or leaning against the wooden balustrade of the viewing pavilions, the majestic torii arches soaring against the starred night.

Eyes closed, Saya inhales.

She is still crying, but in the softest possible way, less a spastic fit than a luxury of self-indulgence. The night's scents are a comfort, both fresh and loamy.

This is the familiar world she'd dreamed of coming back to. But she'd also thought she'd be coming home to familiar _people_ , untouched by the erosions of time.

 _If I don't have that, what else is left?_

Then she hears Kai's voice: "I thought you might be here."

Her heart leaps happily in her chest. Tears spring to her eyes, and she thinks, _Oh Kai. Please talk to me. Let it be like it was in the old days, when you always comforted me and everything was simpler..._

Then she hears Dee's reply: "I wanted to talk to you."

"Yeah?"

"Six weeks since I got back from Caracas. And not one dance? Nevermind a _kiss_?"

A kiss? _What_?

For a moment, Saya's mind fuses shut as bewilderment bleeds into her bones. Directly ahead of her, fairylights are strung between a pair of close-rooted trees. Two shapes are visible between their gaps: a somber vignette of Kai's crisp black suit juxtaposed with Dee's rich burgundy-colored one. They circle each other like duelists, speaking in measured whispers.

Kai says, uncomfortably, "You had Adam to worry about."

"He's okay now. They all are." Dee sighs. "It nixed our announcement though."

"There can't _be_ an announcement, Dee. We've gone over that."

"That's such _bullshit_ , Kai. After what happened in Rio, I thought we both agreed—"

"I've had time to... think since then. And there's no way this can end well—"

"Kai—"

"Deidra, please." Guilt is audible in his voice. "Just hear me out. I'm all wrong for you. All wrong, and too goddamn old."

"You're barely forty-eight. That's—"

"Old enough to know better. Old enough to—"

"Oh. My. _God_." Dee makes an X with both arms. "My dad was _thirty-nine_ when my mom met him. She was _twenty-seven!_ "

"So, what? You've got a thing for older men because David and Julia had an age gap?" Kai lets off that particular laugh that is more like a raspy cough. "That's pretty Freudian, kiddo."

"Don't _kiddo_ me! I'm just saying these things are perfectly normal."

"Normal for other people. Not us." Quietly, "You're David's daughter."

"Also old enough to know my own goddamfucking mind." She hesitates, then touches him arm in a gentle but attention-getting manner. "Kai, come on. What's changed? Is it Otonashi—?"

Kai shifts so her hand slips off. His voice flattens to a monotone.

"That was years ago. Let's not talk about it."

 _Talk about what?_ Saya thinks, an electric current running down her spine. Sweat breaks out on her hairline; her heart starts walloping in her chest.

Between the trees, Dee spreads her arms in the universal gesture of exasperation. "Look. I'm just trying to understand. Everyone knows you carried a big torch for her back in the day."

"Dee—"

"When I first met her, I didn't get the fuss. But there's definitely an… x-factor going on. So I can get—if not _like_ —that you might feel some old sparkage there…"

"Dee. Don't be ridiculous."

She explodes, " _Well if it's not her, then what is it_?!"

"Keep your voice down, for Christ's sake!" Kai's own voice is hushed by the terrible secrecy of it all—but no less fierce. "You deserve a proper life. With a family, and a future, and all the good things someone like you deserves."

"You think I care about any of that?"

"You _should_! You may be a Shield now. But where do you see yourself twenty years from now? Changing an old man's bedpans? Carting him around on a wheelchair?"

" _You_? On a wheelchair?" Her lip curls, a laugh spangling out. "Don't _you_ be ridiculous, Kai."

"I'm serious, Dee. I'm all wrong for you. Too old, too fucked up, and if your Dad finds out—"

"What's there to find out? We haven't _touched_ each other since Rio!"

Saya can sense the heat flaring across Kai's face. His voice is quiet. "I had no right to touch you at all."

"Nuh-uh. Don't make it sound like I was passive. I made the first move, remember? I made—pretty much all the moves." Her voice descends to a warm intimacy that makes Saya queasy with the wrongness of listening in. "And it was good. It was so sweet. I don't know when I was happier. I'd had my sights on you since I was twenty-five—"

"I hoped you'd grow out of it."

"I grew _into_ it. And that crush—it grew into something else—"

"Deidra. Please."

"Kai, I'm just saying. I'm not some civilian who doesn't get where you're coming from. I _do_. I've been on the frontline since I was eighteen. I'm a better fighter than our best troops combined. I can take care of myself. You don't have to protect me from anything—"

The line of Kai's shoulders softens, and he takes her face in his hands. "I don't have to drag you in deeper, either. Dee—for fuck's sake. You don't know what the war was like—"

"I _would_ know, if you'd talk about it with me. That's all I want."

"Dee—"

"Kai, I know you think this is some stupid crush. Maybe it was, once. At twenty-five, I was infatuated with you. At twenty-seven, I was fascinated by you. I was everything except in love with you. But after Rio..."

Kai's hands drop away. "Don't."

"No. Listen to me." Her look is calm, even though the tension at her jaw hints at stoppered emotion. "Whatever you think is the issue, we'll work a way around it. My dad trusts you. He'll be angry, at first—but he'll accept that no one could be a better fit for me than you. We're both fighters. We're both afraid of nothing. We're way better together than we ever could be apart."

"You think that now..."

"Yeah, I _do_!" The calmness evaporates; she jabs a finger at his chest. "I also think _you_ know it too. You keep clinging to the war because it protects you from honesty with people you care about. People you're afraid to lose. Well, tough cookies, Kai. That stance is pretty transparent to me."

"The issues between us are real." Kai is trying to force her out now with sheer stubbornness: his face shut tight as a lid, shades dropped in the eyes, the 'Closed' sign telegraphing across his entire body.

But Dee is obviously stubborn too. "I _know_ they're real. But I also believe something good is worth struggling for. Whatever normal life you think you're taking from me, I promise you it doesn't matter. Future, family, happiness—all that crap. I see it all when I look at _you_. It's enough for me."

"Dee..."

She thumps him. "And it would be plenty for _you_ too, if you'd stop acting like a worldclass head-ass!"

Kai exhales, but says nothing.

Dee barrels on, "And if you think one day I'm going to run away from the mission I've dedicated my life to, or wake up one sunshiny Saturday and decide I want a normie job with an hour-long commute and two-point-five kids, you're out of your mind. I'm part of your life, and part of the mission, and you're just gonna have to deal."

For just a moment, it is Mao's voice that echoes in Saya's ears. Mao had used to talk to Kai like that. But it hadn't worked out between them. Too much time apart, too many miles of distance, too many shrinking frames of reference. In the end, Mao was happier with Okamura.

And Kai...

He'd stayed single all this time. Why? Was it Saya's own fault? Had she given him some clue that it might have worked between them? Made him decide that trying for the affections of a Chiropteran Queen, his adopted sister, was riskable, possible—and not predestined for disaster?

 _It isn't possible,_ she thinks. _It never was._

 _I knew that. He knew that._

 _It was enough that we were family._

So why does her heart feel half-crushed in her chest? Why is she nauseous with the profound sense of a loss she'd never anticipated? She half-wants to cry, but her eyes are dried-up; she has nothing left in her.

She has nothing left at all ... because this isn't her world anymore.

Then Kai exhales. "Fuck, you're a pest."

It isn't remonstrance but rueful praise.

Dee smiles crookedly. "I get it from my mom."

"She's not gonna like this, either. Us."

"At least you agree there is an _Us_."

"And Sayumi and Sayuri— _shit_." Kai scrubs both hands through his hair. His face is a twist of misery. "If they knew I touched their friend—"

Dee squeezes his arm. "I promise they'd love you just the same. They're already worried you're going to end up all alone. They don't want that to happen to you." Gently. "I don't either, Kai."

"Dee, look. I'm sorry, but—"

"They'll deal with it, Kai. They have to. _You_ have to. Because I'm not giving you up that easy." She goes up on tiptoe, her face close to his. "Now about that kiss."

Saya buries her face in her hands, just as Kai's arms pass around Dee, and the softness of clinging lips begins. She doesn't move until the sounds and bodies fade away, and she is left alone beneath the pale boughs of the tree.

Cherry blossoms pirouette slowly into the night air.

* * *

 _Game of flats: A betting card game - but also Victorian-era slang for sapphism. Based on the poem "a New Game / Call'd Flats with a Swinging Clitoris."_

 _Patience: Another name for solitaire - with 'Playing Solitaire' as a pun on masturbation._

 _Leave it to Saya and Haji to couch crassness in card puns 8')_

 _Bugurdži is a Balkan Romani dialect. Nearly extinct in this day and age - which might explain Haji's tenacity in clinging to it._

 _Hope y'all enjoyed! Reviews are yum!_


	16. Cherry Blossoms

_Early update! This was supposed to hit during the weekend - but I got done with it pretty fast c: Second-last chapter of Act I. I'll take a little break after that, before getting started with the next act._

 _In the meantime, here's a srs talk between Saya and Haji, complete with angst, tears, nostalgia, and smut. Also a cw for mentions of child abuse/child trafficking. I've kept the references fairly subtle, but just in case!_

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Haji finds her in the empty gardens.

Sitting on a bench near the pond, in the shade of a low-hanging cherry tree whose branches dip down like heavily beaded curtains. The moonlight falling through the night-blooms gives her a touch of enchantment. Bare shoulders gleaming under her elaborate updo, wisps of hair unraveling from their pins, an empty wineglass in her hand. Her gaze is fixed on the fairy-lights swagging the trees, or at nothing.

"Saya?"

She rouses. Under the dewy make-up, her face is wet with tears.

"Saya, are you all right?"

"Y-Yeah."

She scrubs hastily at her cheeks. He can practically hear her mouth shaping the words by rote. _I'm fine. Nothing to worry about_.

By then he has crossed through the silky tangle of branches, gathering her into his embrace. She stiffens, taking deep breaths in an effort not to cry. Enveloping her shoulders, cool palm coasting along her nape, Haji feels the wild thubbing of her heart.

What happened after the dance for her dissolve into such distress? Was it his sudden absence? Something Victoire said? Her moods are so unpredictable lately. Triggers and tantrums waxing and waning, dictating his own stress-levels across the months.

But this is different. Her whole body shudders like a wineglass struck by a supersonic note.

"Saya." He takes her face in his hands. Her tears dampen his palms. "What's the matter? Did something happen?"

"No." She takes a huge whooping breath, then another. He feels her gathering herself. "I'm okay, Haji. Really."

"Why are you out here by yourself?"

"I just—wanted some air. I needed to think."

 _About what?_ he nearly asks. But Saya realigns her body in a way that is almost casual, so his arms drop away. The bench is narrow, most of it occupied by the tulle folds of her skirt, which she smooths out but does not rearrange. He gets the message and straightens too, an automatic orientation where he disguises the raw concern beneath a quiet solicitude.

It always feels like a play—because like a play he and Saya never deviate from the same tired script.

"Why are _you_ out here?" she asks, when the silence needs to be filled.

"I was looking for you. The others are ready to head home."

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't realize—"

"It is all right. We can stay here awhile longer."

She exhales and doesn't reply. Both her palms are wrapped around her wineglass, thumbs tracing its delicate stem. Haji's preternatural hearing catches the thin high vibrato of the touch. Her pulse overlaps it, carrying the depth and dizziness of a body on the verge of crumbling.

Quietly, he asks, "Shall I bring you something to eat?"

"I'm _fine_."

Conventional wisdom decrees that he leave her alone. Let her have her solitude, before she does damage-control on her make-up and rejoins the _bon ton_ in the glittering dining hall. It was a routine dance between them in the war: advance and retreat, keeping the mess of emotions quiet, and making sure it kept. There were always larger messes to deal with in the war.

But the war is over. And the dance he'd resigned himself to as her Chevalier is one he refuses to fall into as her lover.

He looks at her with a gentle directness. "Saya, you need not be _fine_ every moment. If something is wrong, you should talk to me."

"Not everything can be fixed with _talking_."

"How will you know unless you try?"

Flinching, she turns away. "I just—I need a moment, okay? There's no need for you to hover."

"Forgive me. I was concerned that—"

"Don't be."

"Of course." A pause. "I only love you. That is all."

At this, her anger dissipates. She seems close to tears again.

Reaching out, Haji takes one of her hands in his. Gently massages her fingers from nailbed to knuckles. By degrees, he feels her start to relax. They remain together, hands clasped, the silence not companionable as much as contemplative.

The fairy-lights reflect off the water in the pond. Gazing at them, Saya seems to be holding her breath.

Then, she whispers, "Did you know about Kai?"

"Kai?"

"Him and Dee."

This is such a non-sequitur that he blinks. "What?"

Saya's hand stays in his. He feels her tripping pulse. "I walked in on them. Talking. They're... involved."

"Oh."

It is a loaded sound. Not _Oh_ , _I see,_ but _Oh_ , _you've learnt of it._ He is probably one of the few people who knows about Kai and Dee's ill-considered affair. Even if he hadn't accompanied the team to Rio, his Chiropteran senses are infallible, and miss nothing.

But he hadn't brought it up with Kai. Not when the other man, after the journey home, had tried so hard to act casual, while both warning and pleading Haji with his eyes not to ask questions.

Haji had seen no reason to ask. Dee is a consenting adult, and a formidable fighter. Whatever happens between her and Kai is—if not exactly _approprié_ — none of his business.

Perhaps Saya feels otherwise? Perhaps her brother's budding relationship is another reminder that she no longer fits into her family's lives?

Or is her sadness rooted in something deeper?

Haji experiences a kneejerk twinge—insecurity, jealousy—and sets it aside. Squeezing Saya's hand, he says, "Kai had reasons not to share the news."

"So you _did_ know."

"I—"

"I should have guessed." She yanks her hand from his. The look she gives him is strange. Almost accusing. "You two are thick as thieves now. You probably cover up for each other all the time."

"Saya—"

"When I wondered about you and Victoire, Kai said you were only friends. I doubt it was the truth."

 _Victoire_? Where has this come from? He was ready—if not happy—to assume she was perturbed over Kai's affair. He hadn't considered—

"Saya. Victoire is an old friend."

"A _friend_ who remembers your favorite food. Who touches you—" she aims a finger along his nape. "—right at the sweet spot."

"She is that way with everyone."

"I suppose she speaks _Bugurdži_ with everyone too?!"

"It is her mother tongue." He fights a reflexive wince. "She was trafficked as a twelve-year-old from Kosovo. A wealthy French couple adopted her. You can ask her yourself. Half the UNHCR initiatives use her as a spokesperson."

"Oh! So you share a sordid history as well as a language!" She throws up her hands. "That's _worse_!"

"Worse or better—it is hardly a secret. Or a rarity in that part of the world."

Or anywhere. His own tribe had coasted from city to city, paying their way with scrawny packages of flesh-and-bone. It was why they'd sold him off. It remains the same the world over: the demarcations of nations on maps dissolving into a quagmire of bartered children's bodies—for slave labor, for sport, for sex.

It was this understanding that forged his friendship with Victoire. A mutual thanks for sailing the ocean of flesh-peddling, with their feet dry and their eyes on the horizon, until they found in music their Al-Judi.

Then Saya explodes—"You're saying you _haven't_ slept with her?"

" _What_?" God, she is making him woozy with these turns! "Of course I haven't!"

"I don't believe you!"

"Saya, I would never—"

"I watched you two together. You were—you were _smiling_."

This stirs the beginnings of a dry exasperation. "Smiling? Well, it is no wonder you doubted me."

She swings a punch at him; he catches her wrist in stunned reflex. "—Saya, have you gone _mad_?"

"Yes. _Yes_. I keep thinking this is the same world I left behind! That _you're_ the same person I remember! But you're not! _Nothing_ _is_!"

"Saya—"

She pulls free, leaping to her feet. Rays of moonlight carve through the tree's shade, picking up the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. She is trembling under her heavy gown.

"This is all wrong," she whispers.

Haji, rising more slowly, frowns. "'Wrong'?"

"This. Us. I'm all wrong for you. You could be out there with other women. Beautiful, _normal_ women. I wish I could be that for you. But—"

"Saya." Helplessly, he spreads his hands. "What makes you think you are not? Victoire is normal. So are you. You are lovelier and stronger in all the ways than her, but otherwise—"

Her scowl cuts him short. _Don't try it, sir._ "She said I wasn't your _type_. She found the idea of us together _funny_."

He represses a grimace. "She has no idea what my type is."

" _Neither do I!_ "

Can she truly be so dense? "It is _you_ , Saya. It has only ever been you."

From his boyhood to his adulthood, her star has dazzled with an intensity that blinds. The more he tries to find other women attractive, the brighter she burns, eclipsing all else. It will always be Saya, or no one.

 _If I cannot convince her to trust me,_ he thinks miserably, _it will end up being no one._

He chooses his words with care. "Why would you think I am interested in Victoire? Or anyone? Have I given you any reason to believe—"

"Because the war's ended, and you've gone on with your life. You, and Kai, and David and Julia and Lewis, and _everyone_." Her voice is clotted with grief. "Everytime I look at you, I remember that. You're fine without me—you don't need me to be your friend, or your g-girlfriend. I've been gone so long... too long... and I keep thinking you're mine, but you can't be." She lets out a hitching gasp, almost a sob. "You're so far away now. I keep trying to catch up to where you are, but there's so little time... barely three years before I'm gone, and then—"

He snatches her up, silencing the dreadful monologue with a kiss. Her gasp buzzes against his mouth; he swallows it down.

She is rigid at first. Then the strung-out strain in her body melts away, and she flows against him on a sob. Crazy to just kiss her like this, but wonderful too: all hot skin and the disarray of pink lace and wild ringlets threaded with motes of perfume—as if all his wants have tangled themselves into a fragrant bouquet in the shape of Saya. It takes everything in him not to push up her skirts and have her right there on the grass.

Remind her, in a way that goes beyond words, that he will always be _hers_.

Instead, he breaks the kiss.

Saya sways in his arms. Her eyes are half-lidded, almost punch-drunk. Nothing alive but her shaky inhale-exhales and the night-music of the garden.

Gently, Haji strokes her hair. "Saya. Please tell me the truth. This is not about Victoire, is it?"

"Yes. No." She swallows. "I-I don't know."

"What then?" Quieter, "Surely you do not think, because I have a separate life, or Kai a girlfriend, that we have forgotten you?"

She draws in a hitched breath, trying to steady her pulse.

"I-I'm sorry. I know it's unfair of me. I shouldn't be so—so—"

"Please do not apologize. You feel what you feel. There is no helping it."

"I _should_ help it. It's just hard. Your life is so different now."

He kisses her forehead. "My life is right here."

"Haji..."

He reaches to pluck the ornate pins from her unraveling chignon. Her hair spills down around her face, releasing the delicious burst of her scent. He wraps a handful around his palm, a dark glossy skein, and lifts it to his lips.

"When we were young," he whispers. "I used to dream of this. Being able to kiss you. To touch your hair."

"My hair?"

"Your hair. Your mouth. The tips of your fingers. It felt forbidden to even imagine it. You were always so far beyond my reach."

"It's the other way around now, isn't it?" Her gaze is shaded, even as her true anxiety shows in the way she plucks at the buttonholes of his suit-coat. "I'm here. But you're at a place I can't touch. With a career, a network. No one would look at us and believe I taught you everything first."

A smile flickers behind Haji's face. Affection. Acknowledgment. "You taught me etiquette."

"And now everyone thinks you're a princeling and I'm a peasant."

"You taught me card games."

"And now your pokerface is better than mine."

"You taught me the cello."

"And now you're a renowned musician."

He caresses her damp face with his thumb. "You taught me _life_."

In the gloaming, her eyes trace the scars ridging his cheekbone. "The ugliest parts of it."

"But also the happiest."

 _Happy_ as he hadn't been since being wrenched away from his family. How to tell Saya about those days? The cruel lapses of loneliness. The crueler augers of abuse. A child in the hands of monsters, a nerveless mouthful of meat to be chewed up and spat out. He'd accrued his share of bite-marks—psychic, literal—by the time he'd reached the Zoo. Holding his body like a raw wound, his surliness a bandage hiding what he'd sworn never to speak of again.

Yet, in the mansion, he'd felt his outsidership too intensely to bear it in silence. In Saya's room, he'd cracked, and cried.

And Saya had comforted him. For all her petulance, she was tender in a way he'd never anticipated. Where he'd expected cruelty, she shown him compassion. Where he'd dreaded depravity, she'd taken him by the hand and shown him that the loss of family didn't presage a loss of innocence. And day by day, in the warm space between their bodies, Haji had learnt how to shed the layers of mistrust, and rediscover how to be a child again.

Quietly, he says, "I know things are strange right now. But I promise you will overcome this, Saya." He leans in, their foreheads together. "Until then, I will give back all your lessons to me, ten times over."

Her breath feathers hotly across his. But it is nothing to the heat of her flush. "What if that's not enough? What if you grow tired of me?"

"Never. You made me yours, and it will remain so. For as long as I exist."

She smiles. But he can see the stress-lines of doubt beneath.

Folly to believe conversation can fix everything. She is right about that, at any rate. Talk is not the true healer. Time is.

Except their time together is so fleeting. Now that he is closer to her than he'd ever dreamed of being, dread at her leavetaking haunts Haji every moment. He wants her with him, one hundred percent. Wants that melting smile she entrusts to him in bed. Her trust itself, a precious house of cards that he would slit his own throat before toppling. Her laughter and kisses. Her piercing cries. Those small, strong fingers that can wield a blade with lethal precision, but still tremble when he twines his fingers through them. How she wiggles her toes and sings to them when rolling on her stockings in the morning; how she grabs his hand and playfully bites the knuckles in a coded _Come to bed_ at night. Her habit of sending him kitten videos on her phone, even when they are in the same room together. Her impatience for the so-called modern marvels of today: VR goggles, edible water tablets, 3D printers, cyborg limbs. Her adoration for the ordinary joys that no one else pays mind to: authentic tacorice, seashells, Luna moths, fairytales, pink roses.

All the rare moments where the unfamiliar and familiar are an inextricable blur. Where their simpatico as war-comrades transforms into the raw and tantalizing negotiations of first love.

Saya whispers, "I'm yours too. I-I know it feels less true, because I'm only here a little while. But it's true in my heart. I swear."

Moved, he cannot help but smile. "You need not swear. A kiss will do."

She goes up on tiptoe, hands curling around his shoulders. Her lips are soft as creampuffs, and as sweet.

Sighing, Haji encircles her closer. Takes the kiss for what it is meant to be: a reconciliation as much as an inevitable return to themselves. Then it deepens, so the garden blurs at the edges, a bright floret of want opening up between them. Saya murmurs a soft _Oh._ The purest, most perfect articulation of desire Haji has ever heard.

Cupping the back of her skull, he lures her in, their mouths opening wider, and this is trust, this is truth. The shape of her in his arms, all soft pastel colors and cherry-dark sweetness, a rose, a ruby, a pink ribbon, a cliffside lily he'd swoop to his death just to touch.

Remembering himself, he breaks off, "We should—go back inside."

But his body, wrapped around hers, stays put, as spellbound as the rest of him.

"In a little bit," Saya says.

"Someone might miss us."

"Ssh."

She coaxes him back. Moonlight makes dappled patterns across their bodies through the cherry-tree. Saya presses him possessively against the curving tree trunk. The breeze blows off the aroma of her skin, the life caught in her dark hair. And Haji is breathing purely for _her_ now, hunger blooming irresistibly from the touch of her mouth against his, from the heat-waft of pheromones from her pores.

She gasps when he reverses their positions. Pinning her delicately against the rough tree-bark, arms up on either side of her. Feasting, less delicately, on her mouth, the arc of her neck, the dovelike sweep of her collarbones. The night air is fifty degrees and dropping: too cool to break away from the narcotic of her body-heat.

"Did you really—" Saya says breathlessly.

"Hm?"

"Did you really fantasize about me? About touching my hair."

"Yes."

His palms smooth her tumbled hair, cupping and worshiping her face, her neck. The wind stairs again, and he catches the aroma of her sweat, rising up between her breasts. She sighs as he nuzzles her satiny throat straight down to where they swell above her low-cut neckline. Her pulse is a skittish butterfly.

She whispers, "What else did you fantasize about?"

"Anything I could think of. Anything I ought not to."

"Oh," a smile lights her face, "I think you ought to."

He encircles her closer to unzip her bodice halfway. When the fabric gapes, he kisses lower, down her sternum. Her brassiere is a shade paler than her skin, and smells of her. Saya gasps as he bends to drop wet kisses on each of her nipples through the semi-transparent silk. He suckles them gently through the fabric, teasing each one into a crinkled stiffness until she pipes hot cries into the chilly air.

"Ha-Haji…"

He lets go. "I thought of this as well. _Vous toucher partout. T'embrasser partout_."

She wavers out a sigh, " _Juste …embrasser_?"

" _Il y a un baiser …et baiser_."

This makes her redden. "You never—told me."

"We were at war."

"What about before that?"

"Before?" His widespread palms gather up her skirts, the frothy petticoats rustling together. "I did not dare."

"Why?"

"What could I have offered you?" His voice rasps, regret hidden beneath its quiet shell. "I had nothing. And you had given me everything."

"That—that's not true. I— _oh_."

He's caught the hem of her gown in one hand. The other ghosts cool along her inner thighs. Past the tops of her silk stockings to the stripes of warm bare skin above. White panties: lace and cotton. The fabric damply hints at the matted curls within.

Gently, his thumb traces her through them. Saya gasps, and lets her legs fall shyly open.

"Did you—think of doing this too?"

"Yes."

And a hundred wickeder things.

"How old were you? When you first started?"

"Thirteen."

"That's... so young."

She says _Young_. She means _Innocent_.

And, looking back on it, he was. The first night in his narrow bed, giving in to the fever inside him, his boyhood fantasies so intense yet so intensely pure. Picturing the pink pillow of Saya's mouth, her dainty hands, the delicate curve of her décolletage, the attar of roses rising up from her skin. Each recollection was the softness-bordering-on-pain that he felt for the fragility of baby animals. Yet it was followed by stirrings that made a mockery of his quiet fraternal devotion, a biological conspiracy of blood-tissue-tremors that left him each morning queasy with guilt.

Facing Saya in the daylight over their breakfast of coffee and crêpes Suzette, over their rigorous German lessons with parchment and inkblots strewn between them, after their playful romps on horseback across the Zoo's grounds, between their lazy picnics by the green equipoise of the cliffside, Haji would catch her eyes and feel a flush marbling his skin.

Desiring her felt a sacrilege of the most shameful sort. To conflate that desire with the act of sex—not the dry terminology imparted to him with a schoolmasterish boredom by Joel, or the matter-of-fact crudeness of animals pairing in the fields, or the bawdy jocularity of gentlemen's talk in the parlor—but the _things_ he'd endured after being sold as a child, felt unimaginable.

He desired her, yes. He dreamed of her from boyhood to adulthood, lost sleep and seed over her. And yet, he had no designs upon her. Even with his thoughts swooping in one place—the mystery and familiarity of her—his need was to protect her, please her. He grew to love her intensely, ineradicably, indiscriminately. All the parts of her, even those that remained unknown to him.

The only person he'd ever _want_ —if not for the impossibility of ever having her.

Until now.

Saya's sighs blur on a high startled cry as his hand dips down her body. Past the band of her panties, the lace-edged elastic sliding over the knuckles, then over his wrist. Keeping his hand captive, while his arm holds her captive in turn, squeezing her in tighter, his face in her hair.

When his fingers dabble lightly at her entrance, she shudders. Inside, she is seeping wet. Her body kicks off spectacular waves of heat, like the noon haze in the monsoon.

"H-Haji—"

He freezes. "Should I stop?"

"Don't you _dare_."

She clings to him, hot little face burrowing into his neck. Stirs in slow-motion as he strokes with a deliberate delicacy, spreading the dewy moisture up and out. Her cries are always so beautifully soft. But when he gets it right, they become a rich red symphony—all slickness and overwhelmed tremors, her exhalations rising from her diaphragm and out her parted lips, past the wakefulness she wears each moment like a breastplate.

He tries to imagine it that way, a tempo of vibrations from the center of her, cracking distance into dissolution, the dry terminology of Latin lost beneath the allusions of music, the purest sounds of life: "clitoris", a flicking fingertip, a rosebud delicacy, blossoming in a bariolage of hot sparks through her whole body; "vulva" a secret play of lips, a delicate pressure, two fingers sunk to the knuckles and rubbing in slow circles, coaxing cadenza into contralto into…

" _Oh_ "

Saya grabs his wrist to keep his hand in place. He knows his fingers are pressed to the good spot inside, (and there's a thought: _inside_ , a secret space played in tender mimicry of glissando) because her breaths are stuttering on sobs, her thighs clenching and unclenching around his hard-boned wrist, her hips twisting erratically as the tension in her rises and ruptures.

Her finish is a lovely thing: a sobbing spiral, a fluttering fall. Vibrating, she clings to him, face buried in his shirt. Gently, Haji draws his fingers away. They glisten before he pops them into his mouth. Salty, succulent. The taste makes his blood froth.

The task should have done what it intended: soothed them both. Yet all he can think of is pinning her against the tree and riding her to the edge. Longing suffuses him, even as his mind races a million directions: He dare not take her in such a public place... A lady deserves a warm bed within four walls, not a knee-trembler in the chilly night air... She makes him so hot and _hungry_...

His lips skim hers; permission, pleading. "...Saya?"

"God. _Yes_."

He takes her by the waist, lifting her so high she dangles past her tiptoes. Nudges the panties aside, before fumbling one-handed with his zipper. Lip bit, she drops her palm to assist. Strong fingers closing around him, with the same confident grip she uses on her sword.

And when he goes into her, she clasps him wetly, exquisitely inside, a fire-flower blooming in reverse. He never gets tired of it: that first liquid slip of her most tender flesh swallowing his. The way both of them shudder at the body-closeness, her kittenish cry unfurling from her throat and into his mouth. Her thighs tremble as she struggles to keep her toes on the grass.

"Let go," he whispers. "I've got you."

Obeying, she wraps her legs around him, a beautiful silky petal clinging to his skin.

He gives her a moment's flexion until she adjusts. The rest of him, exultant and dizzied in every particle, can't focus anywhere but on the wrapped closeness of her—all syllabic sighs and buttery sweetness. Excess fabric is caught everywhere between them. Yet that makes it twice as exciting: their bodies enacting a smooth fitting beneath the layers of petticoats; their lips touching and parting on soft, wet noises; and the wind stirring the curtain of cherry-blossoms encircling the tree in an illusion of secrecy…

From the entrance to the gardens, Victoire's voice floats in. "Haji? Are you there?"

It is an ice chip flung to Haji's nape.

 _Damn_.

Of all the inopportune—

Victoire's heels click on stone tiles, then crunch softly on underbrush as she steps into the garden.

"Haji? Come _oooon_. The manager wants a word."

Her footsteps come closer. Wincing, Haji tries to disengage from Saya. But his Queen's entire body folds around him, a ribboning of arms and legs and a slick clench of heat. A groan presses against the walls of Haji's throat. He makes himself look at Saya, who looks back.

Her eyes are like nothing he has seen before. Red-hot and ravenous. Like she will swallow him down and digest him in stages unless he escapes.

"Saya." It husks painfully in his chest. "Not—a good moment—"

" _Yoohoo_? Haji? Where are you hiding?"

He hears the rustling of Victoire's gown. Her footsteps edge toward the cherry tree.

"Saya— _please_ —"

She ripples around him in answer. He gasps, every atom in his being funneling agonizingly to where they are connected. He can't think, can't breathe, can't focus anywhere but on her living heat, her pulse and power.

It _is_ power, he understands dimly. A reminder that he belongs to her. That he will answer the call of her body before the clamorings of any mortal woman.

The knowledge crashes through him in a surge of blood. When Saya grapples him closer, her hips twisting in a command to _move_ , he obeys. Kissing her with a fierce, wretched, reckless love. Breathing in the scent of the cherry blossoms, and her own mouthwatering aroma that makes him want to nuzzle and _bite_.

"Haaaaji?"

Victoire's call is disturbingly close, discordantly cheerful. Which sums up the woman herself, truth be told. Two-dozen steps, and she will be within range—and earshot—of himself and Saya. The pink veil of the cherry tree cannot hide the onomatopoeic sounds of sex.

If Saya knows, she doesn't care.

She rocks against him shamelessly, ankles crossed at his waist. Her face is absorbed not with pleasure but a fierce concentration. Eyes reflecting the moon, and nothing; there is a glazed sheen to them that reminds him of when she falls into herself in moments of extremis.

When they kiss, her fangs catch his lower lip. Blood spews into their mouths. Haji gasps, the taste going through him in a carnage of disorientation. Then he can't think anymore—he is driving into her over and over, deep, almost savage stabs. Jouncing her against the tree trunk, her skirts bunching in the small of her back, her sounds unspooling into a war-call of triumph.

No way Victoire won't hear. She ventures a few feet toward the cherry tree, and lets off a shrill " _Eeek_!"

Whirling, she flees the garden.

Right before Haji breaks—shuddering, seismic, stunned. Words liquify to a spill of superfluity: half-French, half-Bugurdži, the filthiest of both.

A semaphoric testament of everything she does to him.

Afterwards, slumped against the tree, his arms bracketing Saya's rumpled shape, he struggles to catch his breath. His Queen shakes down her skirts, eyes aglow. He has no idea if she came or not: her body still vibrates at a wicked pitch.

But her smile is like a cat with a bowl of cream.

"Mm." She nuzzles his collarbone. "I like when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Speak in tongues for me. Or Bugurdži."

He dares a smile. "It was all the same… where the priests were concerned."

Giggling, she gathers up her hair in one hand, fanning her neck with the other. The salty perfume of her body envelops him; Haji inhales it greedily. Blood lingers copper-bright on his tongue. It is a first: she hasn't fed from him in months, least of all during lovemaking.

Taking it as a hopeful sign, he looms in closer. Skates his palms adoringly up her neck to frame her face, bestowing the flavor back to her in a kiss.

Cooing, Saya eats his mouth like candy. Then, gasping, she jerks away. " _Don't_."

"What—?" He blinks dizzily. "Saya, what's wrong."

"Don't—don't do that. Don't cut yourself for me."

"The cut was already there."

"What?"

"From when you kissed me." Rare playfulness wells. He pushes his face into the tumble of her hair, mouthing her ear. "Right before we scandalized Victoire."

Flushing, Saya twists away. "I-I don't know what came over me."

He can hazard a few guesses, but keeps them to himself. It is the moment he is learning to dread: when her glow fades into gloom. When they fall back into the flat cadences of distance and dissembling. Their history is too bleak for them to let go completely. Sex, for Haji, has too long been a sordid generality at best. Whereas for Saya, it is a terrifying unraveling at worst.

Yet he hopes, with time, the ambivalence will fade. That she will allow herself enjoyment in their intimacy, without guilt afterward.

Her brow has resumed that familiar half-frown. He smooths it with a thumb, and kisses it. "Saya, please. We were having a good time."

She crosses her arms over her chest. "I d-don't know what came over me," she repeats. "You shouldn't have let me—"

"It was only a bite."

"Maybe I don't _want_ to bite you. Maybe it makes me feel like—like I'm—" Breaking off, she squeezes her temples, as if the pressure might snap some hidden hinge inside her. " _God_. First the _thing_ in the training room, and now _this_? What is _wrong_ with me?"

"Saya." Haji takes her shoulders in a gentle grip. "It is all right. You did not hurt me. I am sorry I upset you. But we are both fine."

"I never know if I'll be _fine_ a minute from now."

"Who among us is?"

Bristling, she wrenches away. "I'm glad you find this funny!"

"Not funny. No. But why tear yourself up when there was no danger?"

" _No danger_?"

"Not between us." He takes her face in his hands. "Please. You barely nicked my lip. I have received worse."

"And it's always _from_ me. Or _for_ me." Her fists clench. Rage gathering in the clearness of her eyes. "Is that what you get off on, Haji? Hoping I lose my head and hurt you?"

"What?" His mouth drops open. The rest of him stymied with shock. "Of course not. But there need not be shame between us. Not over this." Gentler, "Saya, I am not downplaying your concerns. I understand them. But I also feel you could be getting more... satisfaction from this than you allow yourself."

"It's not about _satisfaction_! You don't know. You can't possibly know what it's like." Shivering, she looks away. Her raw voice holds no spirit. "Anything I do, I second-guess myself. Always wondering if I'm a normal person. If I can be safe, and sane, and _good_. Wondering if I'm any different from—"

 _From Diva._

He waits. When she remains silent, he says, "I will not help you say it." Not tonight. Not ever. "You have spent your entire life atoning for what your sister has done."

"None of it would've happened if I hadn't let her—"

"If you had not what? If you had not felt sorry for her? If you had not left her locked up?" She flinches. But he keeps on, speaking with a quiet forcefulness he rarely allows but which he cannot hold back any longer. "Saya, you are _not_ Diva. I see each time how your happiness chafes against the fear that you might be. But I promise it is not so."

She swallows. "When I disconnect, I'm as dangerous as Diva. We both know that."

"Disconnection is not the same as letting go."

She claims he doesn't understand. But how can he not? The Chiropteran's appetite gnaws constantly at both their nerves. Taken together with Saya's guilty streak—as wide as the curve of the night sky—of course she is wary. But is this ring-around-the-rosey of recriminations worth it? Does she think, by beating herself up after each moment of shared joy, she can starve her instincts out? Starve his love out?

A rejection of her whole self—and by proxy of him.

Reservation feeds resolve. He draws closer. Looming above her in the dappled moonlight from the trees, then kneeling. He bares his neck. It is the most natural thing in the world. Offering himself to her. Proving that there is nothing of him she is not permitted have.

"Saya. Please."

She looks down warily, her mussed hair falling around her face. "Wh-what?"

"Take what you need."

"Haji—"

"You have not fed from me since your Awakening. Perhaps because you feel it makes you a monster who is glad to be." Gently, "I swear you are not. You never will be."

"I—"

He takes her hand. Kisses the fingertips, and the palm, before placing it on his pulsepoint. Her thumb rests there, imparting an exquisite caress that makes him shiver.

"Please. Do not deny yourself."

Her eyes widen, their interior taking on that familiar red glow. Hesitation. Hunger.

He knows she may refuse, as she did many times in the war. But just as likely she may absorb his trust, through the touch of his skin, his look, his voice. She will gather him in, and bestow the bite that melts so blissfully from pain to pleasure; the restorative union between Queen and Chevalier. Afterward they both will be better for it.

Instead she blanches and staggers back. "You—you're out of your mind—"

"Saya—"

She nearly trips over her gown. Eyes gone huge and swimmy. "No. _No_. I can't—"

"Saya—there is no reason to—"

" _Just leave me alone_!"

She runs off, disappearing into the treeline on the far side of the pond. Leaving him kneeling there, wondering where he went wrong.

Where he went wrong this time.

* * *

 _Vous toucher partout. T'embrasser partout:_ Touching you everywhere. Kissing you everywhere.

 _Juste …embrasser?:_ Just kissing?

 _Il y a un baiser …et baiser:_ Well, there is a kiss... and a kiss ("baiser" can double as a 'kiss,' or a 'fuck.' Haji is getting cheeky here.)

 _Hope y'all enjoyed! Next chapter will fall sometime in mid-December!_


	17. Blodfødt

_Okie-doki! Final chapter for Act I! Ending on a sinisterish note, as the plot's gears begin moving in slow-motion (...super snail-paced slow motion...). Hope y'all enjoy!_

 _I'll resume updates for Act II, hopefully around mid-to-late January! Heaps of love and smoochies for all the support and feedback I've gotten on this project. I will be sure to keep you guys updated about little snippets/plotty stuff on tumblr, in between my Endless Queue._

 _Reviews are delicious and nutritious!_

* * *

Yabuchi Island

Uruma,

Okinawa Prefecture 904-2304

In the dark cubbyhole outside the observation chamber, two men are in heated argument.

"—Carsten, what the _fuck_? We're scheduled to raze this place down by next week. I've got no time for crazy stunts—"

"Not a stunt, Jordy. I swear!"

"So what the hell do you call _this_?!"

"I'm recording a _demonstration_. To show to the board. They wanted a bona fide super-soldier, right?"

"That guy's not—"

"He's all that, and more. Just trust me, Jordy. This is the real deal."

Jordan Tibbetts scrubs both hands through his graying bristle-brush hair. It's less a nervous tic than a narrowly-avoided impulse to reach out and throttle Carsten.

 _Motherfucking jackass piece of shit._ What has he gotten himself into this time? The board have already sent out the memo. The experiment is kaput. Finito. Dead as a doornail-dodo-dildo-what-fucking-ever. It's time for Carsten to accept that and move on.

Not that Carsten will.

Eyeing his colleague balefully, Jordan is struck, as always, by the sheer _nerdiness_ oozing from Carsten's pores. The quintessential picked-on Poindexter, right down to the wire-frame spectacles and pimply skin and frizzy mouse-colored hair.

Hardly unpardonable sins in themselves. Not even social handicaps: nerdy is _trendy_ in this day and age.

Carsten's problem is a massive entitled streak concentrated to a prickly point of petulance. He doesn't scowl; he sulks. He doesn't wrangle; he whinges. His voice, face, body are all unified by that single unpleasant attribute. It's easy to picture him as a neckbeard in his teens: stooped over a crusty keyboard and trolling the abyss of reddit threads. Doxxing Ess-Jay-Double-Yous and championing meninism. Shit like that.

Sure, Jordan is ready to forgive these quirks. Carsten Andreasen is, whatever else, flat-out brilliant. Graduating with high honors in biochemistry from one of the finest East Coast institutions, he came highly recommended to Jordan's division. A definite asset to the company.

The furor around Cinq Flèches pharmaceuticals has died down. Its CEO, Van Argiano, has completed his term in federal prison. Released a decade prior, he's begun his own biopharma firm in the States—low-key and ostensibly harmless. The public, in general, are less wary about biopharmaceuticals. Venture capitalists too, are less shy about financing them.

It's what Jordan and Carsten counted on for their latest work: _Project Epsilon_. A brainchild five years in the making. Their goal was to develop magic blue pills. Billed as the holy grail for all that ails middle-aged man: aching bones, fatigue, slowness, saggy peckers.

That was the sanitized flipside.

From the outset, Jordan and Carsten's ambitions stretched beyond ED remedies. They were perfecting a biological weapon. Half-steroids, half-supplements injected straight into the bloodstream. One shot would transform an ordinary grunt into a super soldier. Enhanced stamina, catlike reflexes, magnified senses. The works. Military research firms would fork over thousands— _millions_ —to get their hands on it. DynCorp. Honeywell. SAIC. They'd all line up like cherries in a slot machine— _ching ching ching_ —payoff.

Jordan and Carsten had worked hard to make it happen. They'd pulled strings—and twisted arms—to recover classified information from Cinq Flèches' archives. Jordan had put Carsten in charge of the operation.

 _Carte blanche, pochito_. _Go all out._

It was like handing gasoline to a pyromaniac.

From the outset, Jordan had received unsavory reports. Illegal subjects being shipped in from third-world nations. Toxic chemicals improperly disposed of. Staff being strong-armed into signing non-disclosure agreements. He'd ignored it—and done his best to quell any rumors. He and Carsten were in the process of creating a magic elixir, for fuck's sake. A _bona fide_ superhero pill. That didn't happen without getting your hands dirty.

Until someone leaked a video to the board.

Dirty? Forget dirty. The whole enterprise was _rotten_. Half the specimens were trafficked children and septuagenarians from the likes of Laos and Cambodia. Most were malnourished and sickly. Nearly all of them died with horrific slowness. One escaped the facility barely four two prior. He tried to swim off their headquarters in Yabuchi Island—before succumbing to too much of the wrong chemical in his bloodstream. D67-turned-death-stew.

A close shave. _Too_ close for the board.

Like sternutaphobiacs in a hayfield, they'd skedaddled before you could say _Gesundheit_.

And now, here is Carsten. Back like the prodigal son you'd prayed would stay gone.

And he's got a friend.

The guy stands naked in the halogens of the harshly-lit testing chamber. There is an impermeable barrier of Plexiglas between him and the men in the computer room. But Jordan can see him perfectly. Tall and deep-chested, his pale skin is tinted yellowish by the tungsten glow. Muscles everywhere: slabbed across the thighs and arms, delineating shoulders and hipbones and calves. Dick like a stallion's, shaft and fuzzy scrotal bulb and all. His hair is a catalytically red hellfire, and his eyes are a bizarre two-tone contrast of brown and blue.

In the whiteness of the chamber, he is a colorful pillar of chaos. There are electrodes hooked to his pectorals and biceps.

"This is Tórir," Carsten says, following Jordan's gaze. "He agreed to come here."

"Where the hell'd you dig him up?"

Carsten's smile is sugar-giddy. "He found _me_."

"What?"

"Just watch, Jordy. This guy is just—I mean. _Damn_."

Well, that sounds… kinda gay. Not that Jordan's a bigot or anything. Live and let live, that's his motto. But there's something weird about the expression plastered to Carsten's face. A crushed-out elation.

Like a kid who's met his comic book superhero. Or his biggest wet-dream.

Then Carsten hits a switch on the console adjacent to the window. In the chamber, the speakers come on. "Are you ready, Tórir?"

The man, Tórir, nods. The mismatched eyes examining the chamber are expressionless. Yet Jordan senses a dark, cold menace lurking beneath. It is like looking into the eyes of a reptile. A predator.

"Okay," says Carsten. "I'm releasing the sarin gas into the chamber."

"Sarin—what the _fuck_?!" Jordan butts in. "Are you out of your pickle-pated mind?!"

"Chill, Jordy. Just watch."

" _Watch_? You'll fuckin' _kill_ him!"

"I won't. Nothing can."

"Carsten—"

" _Trust_ me, Jordan. I'm telling you. He's the real deal."

Real _what_? Jordan stares with stunned stupefaction at Carsten. Who ignores him, and hits another switch on the console.

A waft of aerosolized mist blooms through the airtight chamber. Tórir blinks with mild curiosity. On the monitors, the seconds tick by. One minute. Three. Five. Ten.

Jordan waits, a cold welter of nails jangling around in his gut. He keeps expecting the guy to begin coughing. Watering from the eyes, leaking from the nose, losing control of bowels-bladder-brawn-brains before he collapses in death throes.

One whiff is all it takes, right?

Nothing happens. Tórir stays planted to the spot. No change in pulse or respiration. The screens mapping his vitals are a steady baseline.

"…the _hell_?" Jordan squints. "Was that in even sarin?"

"One hundred percent," Carsten says cheerfully. "It doesn't make a lick of difference. Watch this."

He punches another button on the console. In the chamber, vertical slots appear in neat symmetry along the walls. Openings for sentry guns. Dark polished muzzles rotate and jut out. Tórir's eyes drift to each one, half-lidded with boredom. From the speakers, a cool mechanical voice begins a countdown.

 _Five… four…three…_

Jordan blanches. "Carsten—Carsten, _no_ —"

 _Two…One…._

The chamber erupts into sizzling gunfire. Bullets strafe the floor in zigzag patterns. Ricochets pepper the ceiling with divots and flying chunks of plaster. Tórir remains where he is. The bullets tear through him: a relentless wave shredding muscles and spraying blood. He rocks back with the force of it. His arms pinwheel slightly for balance. But he doesn't fall. He reminds Jordan of a man caught off-step on the sidewalk. _Whoopsy-daisy._

Blood drips across the floor. Flows from the torn-open puckers across his body.

But his expression remains calm. Placid even. A little smile hovering at his lips.

No danger. No damage.

"Christ." Jordan swallows dryly. "Jesus Christ on a pogo stick."

He doesn't understand what he's seeing. A voice inside him yammers that it's impossible, a trick, a hallucination, a bad dream. His mind, lacking the elasticity to wrap itself around the incredible sight, threatens to snap apart under the weight of its own shock.

"Carsten—" he whispers. "Carsten, he isn't—"

"He's unkillable," Carsten says proudly. "I could use grenades. Lasers. Blades. These guys—Jordan, these guys _can't be killed_!"

" _These guys_? What? Gingers? Musclebound freaks?"

"Chiropterans."

"Chiropte—" A blast of rage melts the confusion out of Jordan's brain. He wheels on Carsten. "Nice try. Really. _Fucking hilarious_."

"Jordan—"

" _Shut your mouth_. Did you really think I'd fall for it?" Temper tightens Jordan's musculature into a full-bodied migraine. He welcomes it. It's better than the gibbering horror earlier. "What'd you use? Dye pellets? Kensington gore? Is this some actor you hired—"

"He's real!" Carsten insists. "The tests are real! Jordan—"

"What kind of moron do you take me for? _Chiropterans_. Volunteering to be _your_ test subject? And Red Shield not coming down like the wrath of God-fuckin'-almighty?"

"This guy's not with Red Shield! He's not with any of the Queens!"

"What then? A long lost relative?"

"Kinda."

"What the _fuck_ —?"

"Jordan. Look. I know it sounds crazy. But—"

"You're damn right it sounds crazy! Dee-freaking-ranged. You think you can waste my time with this elaborate prank—"

" _Jordan! Shut it_!"

It is a high-pressure screech. In the artificial glow of the computer room, a brick-hued flush races down Carsten's cheeks. His eyes, behind the glasses, reflect not anger but the antic glitter of a child with a new toy.

A dangerous toy of mass-destruction. All for him.

"You don't get it, do you?" he says. "This is a gift, A _miracle_. All this time, we were scrounging around old archives. Hoping to dig up something substantial on D67. Some way to use a Chiropteran's powers, without our subjects becoming monsters. But we failed. We failed because—"

"Because of _you_ ," Jordan cuts in. "Because of your own stupid, selfish, short-sighted—"

Carsten slaps him. An open-handed slap like the type used to swat a mosquito. Dark spots burst in Jordan's line of sight. He staggers back, thudding against a control panel.

"Jordan. _Shut it_." Carsten's voice belongs to something that's crawled out of a nightmare funhouse. His eyes bulge in the straining mask of his face. "You don't get it. You never have. We've been given something _beautiful_. Something beyond our wildest dreams. Project Epsilon is a playdate in comparison. A groundbreaking cure for Wangular Softitude? The be-all and end-all of soldier-steroids? Don't make me laugh. We're talking about _superhumans_ here. Creatures immune to bullets, knives, gas. Immune to _death_ _itself_. Think of what we could accomplish if we cracked the secrets open. That guy—"

"You're telling me he's a Chiropteran?" Jordan's lip throbs where a trickle of blood seeps through. He swipes it off. His whole body is locked in uneasy tremors.

And _Carsten_ is causing them.

Dorky little Carsten. A little puffed-up and pedantic, sure. But essentially harmless.

Now he looks like a creepy killer clown.

Except… it's not just Carsten. It's the guy in the chamber. Something about him makes Jordan's mind tighten into a quivering ball of dread.

"He's _more_ than a Chiropteran, Jordan," Carsten sneers at him. "He's an _ancient_. This guy has been around since the days Chiropterans roamed the earth. When they were worshiped as gods."

"You expect me to believe some cockamamie—"

"If you don't, then you're even more of a colossal _fuckwit_ than I thought." The mad brightness in Carsten's eyes trickles sweat down Jordan's spine. "Just imagine. A transitional fossil. Alive and kicking and in our grasp. For decades, paleontologists derided the idea of a missing link. But what if they're wrong? What if Tórir proves there's a ranked hierarchy after all? And what if they're right? What if Tórir proves that Chiroptera are a species completely distinct from ours? No missing link, but a totally different tree of life. All the possibilities are before us. By studying this guy, we could learn the differences in our DNA helixes. Evolutionary shifts. Mating patterns. Plumbing. All we have to do is _take_."

"And he's _willing_ to be taken? Experimented on?" Jordan shakes his head. The surreality-factor is rising higher and higher. "Carsten, I'm not sure who's crazier. You or him. I mean, if he's actually a Chiropteran—"

"I never agreed to experiments."

The voice is silky smooth yet imposingly deep.

The two men whirl.

Tórir— _how the hell did he hear us?—_ stands by the chamber's glass wall, tall and strangely regal in his stark nudity, blood streaming off him. But his wounds are gone. The skin is smooth as ice, not a mark anywhere.

Reaching out, he taps a forefinger against the glass. _Tick. Tick. Tick_. The surface is made of high-tensile polyfiber. Nearly indestructible: it would take a nuclear warhead to compromise its structural integrity.

Yet Tórir keeps tapping.

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._

Fine cracks start branching through the barrier, like fissures in bone china. A spiderweb spreading out from the nucleus of Tórir's fingertip. _Tick. Tick. Tick._ The sound _—_ the _sight_ —makes something in Jordan's gullet squeeze shut. He can _feel_ it constricting, the air thinning and making him dizzy with it.

Beside him, Carsten's bravado dissolves in an eyeblink. Gawping, he scrambles back. "Tórir— _stop that_! Y-You need to wait until we decontaminate you. Otherwise—"

"You die." It is a bored statement of fact. "The great talent of your kind."

"Tórir—come on—"

"You're really a Chiropteran?" Jordan cuts in. "Carsten's not pulling my dick?"

Tórir stops tapping the glass. His mismatched eyes flick to Jordan's. They are luminous with some preternatural force Jordan had never encountered before. Even with the barrier between them, his body's reaction is intensely physical: a current of pure fear shooting electrically down the spine.

"I have no idea," Tórir says softly. "What a 'Chiropteran' is."

"Th-they call them something else, where Tórir's from," Carsten hastens to explain. " _When_ he's from. I think it was—"

"Blodfødt," Tórir says succinctly.

"What's that mean?"

"Born of blood." He smiles with one side of his mouth. "Easy enough to translate."

Jordan's heart is thudding. The ventricles are braided with fear. He isn't sure what Carsten has gotten himself into. But staring into Tórir's blue-brown eyes, he has a terrifying sense of unspooling control. Control of Carsten, of the situation, of himself. It is not unlike being a little pig who has let the Big Bad Wolf into his home. A huff, and a puff, and he'll blow everything to smithereens.

"You—you say you didn't agree to experiments," Jordan manages to stammer. "Why did are you here, then?"

"I thought it poetic to revisit where I'd arisen."

"The fuck?" Jordan rolls his eyes skyward. "We got ourselves a red-haired Rumi."

"Rumi?"

This kindles a glow of interest in those weird eyes. The first Jordan has seen. He doesn't like it.

"Yeah. Rumi. Some old-ass poet from back in the day." Sarcastically, "Maybe you've met him. If you are who you say you are."

"I am. Though I cannot say I have." Tórir tilts his head. "I disturb you, don't I?"

Jordan wasn't expecting to hear it so baldly stated. His first impulse is to deny it—but what's the point? His whole body is a network of tremors.

Audibly, he swallows. "Carsten mentioned the dead guards. Were you the one who killed them?"

"Guards? _Oh_." Tórir's expression is marginally piqued. He could be recalling a café he'd recently sipped lattes at. "I required blood."

 _Fuck_.

"And… the mother and daughter at Uruma? That was you too?"

"Again. I required blood."

 _Fuck fuckity fuck…_

Queasily, Jordan puts distance between himself and the test chamber. He keeps putting distance until his back bumps against the door-jamb. He wants to turn and flee, but can't. His eyes seem glued to Tórir's.

"S-So what are you after now?" he manages. "Wait—don't tell me. _More_ blood."

Tórir laughs. The sound gives Jordan the heebie-jeebies. This creature—human, Chiropteran, Blodfødt, whatever he is—seems carved from the essence of menace itself.

Humanity cannot touch him, much less leave a mark.

"I am here," Tórir says, "To make a bargain with you."

"Bargain?" Jordan exchanges glances with Carsten. The other man's expression holds a flicker of panicked bewilderment. So Tórir hadn't shared anything about _bargains_ with him, either. _Figures_.

With effort, Jordan hardens his voice, "What do you want?"

"I want your help in capturing a Queen," Tórir says.

"Capturing a _Queen_?" Jordan's jaw drops. "You're even nuttier than _Carsten_. Why the fuck would you—"

"That is none of your concern." Tórir's lips peel back from his teeth, which are elongated into needle points. His eyes are glowy as backlit microscope slides of some unnatural bacterial culture. "But I will have her. And you will help me."

"You're pretty damn sure of yourself."

"I am. Because you will appreciate what I offer in exchange."

"What?"

"Two Queens for the price of one." That laugh again. Like glass shards scraping over broken bone. "By this time next year, I will have Saya. And in exchange, _you_ shall have her two nieces."

* * *

 _CLASS CONFIDENTIAL_

REASON: Wy, 1.26(b)

DECLASSIFY ON 01-01-2060

MEMORANDUM FOR ALL PERSONNEL

-FORWARDED MESSAGE-

FROM: J***** T*******

TO: A*** P***

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

Forwarding live video footage.

I am available for any questions after your perusal.

* * *

FROM: A*** P***

TO: J***** T*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Is this actual footage?

A real Chiropteran?

* * *

FROM: J***** T*******

TO: A*** P***

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

More than a Chiropteran.

A Chevalier.

We can discuss further details if you are open to renegotiate.

* * *

FROM: A*** P***

TO: J***** T*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Send additional footage.

We will be in contact very shortly.

* * *

Naminoue Beach

1-25-11 Wakasa, Naha

Okinawa Prefecture 900-0037

Saya returns to the villa close to midnight.

In nearly the same state as Tórir had last glimpsed her—her hair and dress disheveled, tears streaking her cheeks.

Without bothering with the elaborate security mechanisms, she flings the door wide open and stumbles inside. The light to the upstairs bedroom flicks on. Through the stained-glass luminosity of the window, Tórir watches her pace in and out of view, dragging pins out of her hair and letting it tumble across her back in a sheath of wild dark ringlets. Her whole body bristles with pent-up misery. A belly-ache of blood-starvation.

Tórir smiles, his face a pale coin in the shadows.

This is by far the most rewarding part of spying on her. Catching her at her most unguarded, in an illusion that he is actually intimate with her. _More_ than that. Having a bird's-eye-view into her personal miseries, and the disharmonies between her and her Chevalier.

Which are considerable.

Fifteen minutes later, Haji has arrived. Mercilessly swift, and maddeningly one-track. Like Saya, he doesn't bother with the security system. He goes directly upstairs. Knocks perfunctorily on Saya's door, then steps inside.

And Tórir watches the fight erupt.

It is thrilling. A shadow-play of pantomime. In the pink clutter of the room, Haji cuts an elegant figure with his dark suit. His movements are smooth inky slashes. Not the presage of erupting fisticuffs, or furniture upended, or disaster galloping in the wind. Each gesture is stiff with supplication, despairing at the discord blossoming like a bloodstain between them. Tórir watches his lips move. The words are blocks of text, curlicued with courtesy and entirely unreadable to him.

And Saya...

As always she is a replica of the Red Queen herself. Shouting and gesticulating, her face is incandescent with the same irresistible energy: the burn of _life_ nearly bursting at the seams. If Tórir could describe it in terms of aura, her nieces at the concert would be paltry baby-colors: sparkly coral, azure blue.

Saya, in contrast, overspills with dynamic waves of hemoglobin red.

Tórir remembers her in the alleyway—swift and strong and utterly savage. Remembers her from the window of the villa, her body an erotic twist of wildly burning eyes and breathlessly escalating moans. Remembers her from their chat at the concert, the shape of her smile, her little hands, the pretty brown eyes so bright on his. She'd given off an air of liking him.

It is progress. But he will have to be more careful. Her Chevalier is observant. If he does not want to stir a confrontation, he will have to waylay her next time she is alone.

And what will he do then? Charm her with words? Seduce her with touch?

Or challenge her to a battle—and see what she is made of?

 _Choices, choices..._

Violent or warm, Tórir's goal is the same. He wants to know all of her, down to her most secret spaces. Her dreams, her nightmares. He wants to learn the delicate shape of her earlobe, the smooth juts of her shoulders, the pale arch of her foot, the heat between her thighs... whether she wills it or not.

 _Oh, but she will..._

His eyes flick contemptuously to Haji. Hard to credit a creature as tamed as that keeping her satisfied in the long run. All her fire and vitality? Or does Saya prefer her men that way? One beckoning curl of her finger, and the obedient dog will roll over to show his belly for her.

 _Weren't you the same way for the Red Queen?_

Anger and longing helix together at the memory. Frowning, Tórir shakes it off.

That was a lifetime ago. A means to an end.

And that end had come with cruel certainty, demolishing the Queens' kingdom beyond repair. He can do it again here. The world is stranger, the kingdom smaller, but no less vulnerable. He's already enlisted the aid of the two humans— _Jordan-and-Carsten_ —for that purpose. Ridiculous puffed-up pests, the two of them. But they are clever, if nothing else. They will serve him well enough.

Within a year, under Tórir's aegis, they will successfully be able to build an organization worthy of clashing with Red Shield. They will gather the resources necessary to prove a worthy contender, then a better.

And then they will capture a "Chiropteran" Queen.

Or three.

Tórir cares little for what they do with the younger twins. It is _Saya_ he is interested in. For her potential as a war-weapon, same as her aunt. As a broodmare, same as her mother.

As herself?

Tórir shakes it off. Tries to ignore the syllables of _Home_ shaping inside his brain with each glimpse of her face.

What cares he for her face or form? Since boyhood, he and his brothers have cared for nothing but power. Power to break bonds and bodies with the same indifferent ease, to never know hunger, or hurt, or humiliation.

His brothers are gone now. Their kingdom is a dust-bowl of memory in this glittering new domain where humans rule. The Queens places too, are reversed. Saya and her family are anomalies and outsiders as surely as Tórir is.

 _It does not matter,_ he thinks. _They will still be made to pay._

His world may be a different one. But Tórir refuses to surrender his ambitions because of it. Doing so would mean forgetting his family, and all they had suffered. It would mean forgetting who he is.

It would mean forgetting who he could've been.

 _With Sváva…_

 _With Suffía…_

Their faces come to him for a moment—two little girls forever on the cusp of laughter. Small and soft and impossibly sweet. Yet he can no longer summon the details of them. Cannot recall their child-voices or their milk-scent with exactitude. Their bodies are made of salt, crumbling away in the icy whistle of wind cutting through his skull.

 _No matter._

 _That blood-debt will be paid, like all others…_

His eyes return to the window. Saya and Haji are still arguing. Their bodies circle like dancers at a ballroom, but in rigid anathema to one another. Then the breakage of distance: vitriol bleeding into passion. Haji enveloping her in his arms—and Saya letting him. Mouths firing kisses like hot arrows; clothes of heavy taffeta and tweed hitting the floor in a succession of dead-body thumps.

Tórir watches them tumble across the bed. Watches them tangle together, bare and sweat-sheened, the sheets rumpled with ghosts of a thousand comings-together past. They go through the delicate, difficult business of reconciliation. Their ease of closeness makes it hypnotic—and deceptive. Saya's body arches into Haji's with force. But her eyes are squeezed shut, her teeth clenched on short raw gasps. As if there is a secret inside that will escape her lungs unbidden.

And when it is over, she is the first one to roll away. The bathroom door slams open and shut. The pipes rumble with sounds of a desultory rinse-off. Then she re-emerges, fully-dressed in jeans, T-shirt and sneakers. Without meeting Haji's eyes, she hurries past him and out the bedroom—the mechanism of her body once again irrelative of his.

Poor silly Haji! How impotently he calls after her. How helplessly he slumps back in the bedsheets, hair awry and eyes glassy, raised heavenward in supplication for some miracle to reconnect him to his Queen.

Who runs downstairs, and out the villa. Tórir watches her stumble into her little car. The engine revs up, and she pulls in a tipsy zigzag out of the driveway.

Tórir watches her go.

 _Shall I follow you, sweet Saya?_

 _Shall I offer to kiss everything better—since Haji cannot?_

He smiles, then stops when a fritzing energy percolates the air. A déjà vu icing down his spine.

 _Someone is approaching._

 _Someone I once knew._

A _blodprinsen_. One even older than Tórir.

The last child of the Blue Queen.

It is hard to credit it. So much time has passed, and there appear to be none of Tórir's old kin left anywhere. Yet the reactions of his body are unmistakable: one warship signaling to the other in fire-showers and blood. An image comes to him, blossoming from deepest memory, of a grinning man, skin and body the gold of sunlight, the sunlight just a cover for refracted fire, every particle of it hot and bright and dangerous...

 _No._

 _It cannot be._

Tórir's jaw clenches. Rage bubbles through him.

 _It's that bastard._

He needs to leave. Quickly, before the newcomer gives chase. Because he will, the way he'd done centuries before, dogging the Red Queen's heels the same way she'd dogged Tórir's. Already the air is thick with the same unnatural tension, like a leash strained, like a bloodhound catching a scent, the hunt for the quarry running irrepressibly in its blood.

Tórir refuses to be that quarry. Never again.

In a blur of motion, he exits the beach. It is so swift that the sand barely stirs where he stood.

Across the beachhead, wind blows. The moon is lured deep into a smog of clouds: more storms are on the way. But for a moment, a slanted ray of pale light passes through the sky. It illuminates a long-boned figure by the shore, hair upswept in a stylish blond swirl, the angular lines of his face caught in a smile of grim recognition.

"Well, well, well," Nathan whispers. "Look what the tide dragged in."

* * *

 _Hi, Nathan. Bye Nathan._

 _Apologies this chapter is so short, but the ones in Act II promise to be extra long, so hopefully it balances stuff out. Let me know your thoughts/suggestions for potential plot directions as we move forward! Review, purrty please! :)_


	18. Act II: Daughters

_Happy 2019, guys!_

 _Act II is officially underway - and I suspect it will be a smidge controversial. Nonetheless, I hope it's enjoyable! We're finally getting into the supernatural twists in the tale, as well as delving more into the histories of Chiropteran Queens. There's a lot going on in this chapter, for which I apologize in advance. Expect lots of questions (which will not be answered until late in the tale 8|), as well as Saya angsting the night away._

 _As always, your feedback is wonderful and delicious and so precious to me! Do let me know what aspects of the tale could be improved, and what direction you'd like to see the plot go!_

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Come with me now, away from Saya.

Now, now. Don't be stubborn. You need a break.

We _both_ do. I left you in her strong-boned hands a while, and she's already left bruises, hasn't she? Your poor head—here, let me take it between my hands, and drop a kiss to the grubby hair-whorl—your poor head's fit to _burst_ , isn't it?

 _We-e-ell._

I should've warned you. She has that effect. It's the danger of being around Red Queens. Their personalities are so supercharged that their emotions are like tempests. That these tempests can wreak prehistorically fearsome thunderbursts should not startle you, any more than her servants ( _hang in there, Haji_!) drowning in the flash-floods of her tears.

Of course, Saya's personal storm has barely begun brewing. It will mature into a calamity of epic proportions—and then _goodness, gracious, great balls of fire_ , what a light-show it will be!

But don't trouble yourself with that.

We've many chapters to go, and plenty of drama to keep us occupied.

If that's not to your taste, worry not! Apart from the ripe themes of love, madness and despair that continue to populate the storytelling annals, I vow that there will soon be a funeral, not to mention violence, politics, travels to exotic places, stopovers at less-exotic ones, a lover's spat culminating in disaster, not to mention a baby or two.

 _Whose_ _baby_ , you ask?

Oh, it doesn't matter. Let's turn away from these messy concerns, and talk of finer things. Of why Red Queen's tempers are boiling hot, and why Chevaliers have wings...

Hm? What's that? Wait a bit, for you are still out of breath, and some of you are fat?

 _Okaaaay_. I'll postpone that tale for another time.

Meanwhile, feel free to clutch your chest and catch a breather from Saya's bodycount podcasts. They won't follow you here. You have my word.

This is a safe place, where the sky is a pretty cornflower blue, and the perfume of petrichor has faded into the balmy warmth of summer and seaside. This is the Okinawa you wanted to see, when you first began the tale, right? A place far removed from the nightmare of the war, where each day begins with the safety of sunlight saturating your pores and your pillowcase.

Well. If that's what you want, I won't deny you. Bask to your heart's content.

While there's still time.

We have to depart soon, you see. We must follow our spunky heroine on her travels. Where is she going? Oh, it's not important right now. This is a restful interlude.

And you're thankful for it, aren't you? _Bitches be crazy_ was merely an amusing dictum. Little did you know Chiropteran Queens embodied it as a physical force.

Truly, it's not their fault.

A Queen is a Queen. She is happiest in the give-and-take of bites and bloodshed.

 _Tsk_. You didn't realize that, did you? Foolish thing. You should have heeded my warning. A Queen is an entirely different creature from a fairytale princess. Dogged, and difficult, and dangerous. So it's better to keep your distance.

Cuddles are best suited for kittens. Queens require only your unfaltering loyalty.

Of course, there are other things Queens require. The stability of the kingdom. The removal of threats. The amassing of armies. Above all, the potentiality of daughters.

 _Heirs_.

Don't mistake me—Queens without heirs constitute a very different crisis among Chiropterans compared to humans.

For you, a _queen_ is an emblem at best, a birthing-vessel at worst. A magnified reflection of her sex as a whole. Barren queens are divorced or discarded in your history books. Bold ones are beheaded or burnt at the stake. At every sphere, they are easy to delegitimize: on display for the public, their power boxed away alongside their voices, they serve as convenient scapegoats to criticize rulership without daring to insult the king. Similarly, the reduction of their roles to wife-and-mother leaves them open to attack for any perceived failings, for then they become a threat to not just the monarchy, but the realm itself.

Think of Katherine of Aragon, or Anne Boleyn. Think of Marie Antoinette, or Marie Stuart, or Juana the Mad. Tragedies and travails, that's all they endured.

I should know. I supped at their tables, trading with them wine and whispers. I sopped up the fear like sweat from their skins, and ate up their nightmares like sweetmeats.

Fascinating women, to be sure. But doomed the moment the crown was set upon their heads. Each of them was dazzled by the jewels poured into her lap, or by grand titles and grander designs. Each one fell for the promises of men whose words meant as little as dust in the wind.

It's inevitable. Among humans, a Queen's power is a corollary of the King's. She must always shape herself to his expectations, or suffer his royal wrath.

Not so with Chiropteran Queens, my doves!

For us, Queens loom so large in that they swallow up the sky. They fill our sensorium, our very psyches, a sun blotting out all other starry pinpricks of light.

They don't achieve this status overnight. _Premiere leçon._ The _title_ of the Chiropteran Queen. For while I speak in the human tongue, the truth is, the word _Queen_ is loaded with dismally connotative baggage. Quene, cwǣn, kwēniz... all these words mean not ruler, but consort. Not liege, but serf.

Whereas for us, a Queen had many names. Each one suited to her unique role, and to her realm itself.

For the Welsh, the Queen was known as _Cerridwyn_. The dark mother, resonating with magic. The shaper of destinies, the ruler of life cycles. For the Celts, she was _Brigit_ —her name immortalized by the term _Breo Aigit_ , or "blazing arrow of strength." For the Norse, she was _Hela_ , the sovereign of the Underworld—a catalyst of creation and destruction.

Go back in history, and you will find the Queens in many forms: _valkyries_ and _vættir_ , _kami_ and _yūrei_. Each one embodying life and death, courage and wisdom, love and hate.

Yet what remains irrevocable is their power.

 _Seiðr_ , we called it. A secret sorcery, which Queens bestowed, if they so chose, to mortals. Both sexes—although it was generally females who were most receptive to their gifts.

These women were known in my land as Vǫlur. They worshipped at the temples of the Blue Queens, serving as spirit mediums and spellcasters. Wise women—sages, mages, and midwives—who would then choose from among their communities the special boys to serve at the Queen's court.

I was one of those boys. A century afterward, Tórir—may the Norns rot his nethers—was another.

We never questioned it. We dared not. Once in the service of a Queen, your life is forfeit to hers. In taking her blood, your spirit soars beyond the feeble constraints of your body. You are born anew, as a divinity.

As _hers_.

And you know her by but one word given many tongues.

Urðr. Wurđíz. Weorþan.

 _Wyrd_.

For a Queen's whim is as inexorable as fate itself. _G_ _ǣ_ _ð_ _āWyrd swāhīo scel!_ Fate goes ever as she must.

So: yes.

Chiropteran Queens were not deposable despots, but forces of nature. They derived this strength not through their intimate relations or lineage through a king, but as movers and shakers in their own right.

And they left no stone unturned or throat unslit to realize their own will, be it through savagery or solipsism, cajolery or coercion.

See, Queens understood the duality of power: hard and soft. The Blue Queen symbolized the latter, with the subtle craft of spirituality. She enslaved humans through their awe of her, conjuring through the ephemera of pomp and pageantry a concrete force-field to protect the realm, a cultural belief-system to shape the day-to-day life of thousands, and thus shape their hearts and minds.

The Red Queen, as you guessed it, preferred the gore-and-guts approach of hard power. Not just warfare and bloodshed, mind you. She understood power-as-process, with strategies and social networks. To protect a realm meant not only warding off enemies but making allies. Power does not negate a support system but _necessitates_ it.

Kingdoms are not built on solitude. Rome certainly wasn't.

Trust me. I was there.

So what, you wonder, does this have to do with daughters?

 _Everything._

A wise ruler must consolidate their kingdom through armies and armistices. But they must also preserve their lineage. Because lineage means _legitimacy_ , the secondary layer of power. The difference being, where power ensures the ability to act upon your whims, legitimacy sanctifies your _right_ to act.

And with legitimacy comes the deference required to secure your place, without the hassle of force, or payment, or resistance. _Sicher ist sicher_.

Daughters, for Queens, guaranteed that their expanding realm remained within their grasp. Princess-Regents served as emissaries for their mothers. They were an extension of her sword-arm abroad. But above all, they were the Queens' _keepsakes_ , carrying their memories after they themselves had passed on.

I speak not in the language of metaphor, but literalism.

 _Epigenetics_ is new-fangled froofraw in your world. In mine, it is veritable fact. Since the beginning, the lives of Queens have been passed down to their daughters. Practically coded into their DNA. Each little Princess inherits from her mother the gifts of slaughter and song, dark dreams and darker drives, a genetic blueprint strung together from dozens of ancestral threads. Inside her body, she carries the recorded history of her lineage—a Pandora's Box of secrets that lacks only the key.

I should caution: these genetic bundles are a protective mechanism. Deployed purely in extremis: a life-and-death battle, a decade of isolation, a traumatizing event.

Think of Diva's song—beautiful foreign words pouring from her tower. Think of Saya's swordsmanship, and the vengeance wrapped tight as concertina-wire around her heart.

 _Toutefois_! The textlessness of ancient communiques is nothing without context!

Once these collective memories are inherited, they must be steadied by capable hands.

The hands of Queens.

Into her daughters' tiny ears, each Queen imparted the meanings behind ancestral sagas: travails and triumphs, battles and ballads. She explained to her offspring their place in the world, beneath the stars and before the sea, fortifying them against troubled times the way she once strengthened her fortresses against snowfall and siege alike.

Had Saya and Diva's mother—the Blue Queen—survived, she would have bestowed upon her daughters the esoterics befitting princesses. While from their aunt—the Red Queen—they would have gleaned the military prowess traditionally entitled to princelings.

Our girls would have entered adulthood, arm-in-arm, not with the enmity that festers from isolation, but with a society of mothers and aunts and grandmothers behind them, offering their support through the trials of life.

Alas, that was not so.

Biology is the root of one's predispositions. But upbringing is the true determinant of tragedy.

You've witnessed Saya and Diva's upbringing. You know how they've suffered, as much at the hands of wicked men as in their rivalry with one another.

Now one is dead. The other, as we've left her, is finding her way, stumbling without goal or guidance, but nonetheless walking on.

Shall we rejoin her? You've come this far already. Surely you'll survive the remainder of the journey.

You want to know, after all, if _she_ will…

* * *

Atta Maashiriii

Atsuta, 〒901-2313

Kitanakagusuku-son

Nakagami-gun, 〒901-2313

Okinawa-ken

Saya brushes the moist crumbs of earth off the limestone tomb.

"Hey, Dad," she says. "I'm sorry I've been away so long."

The star-speckled night resonates with wind. The sounds of the cliffside create an echo that is eerie in its emptiness. At this hour, the turtleback tombs are deserted. Saya's ears decrypt the songs of insects and the burrowing of small animals in the dark canopy of trees. An entire ecosystem disturbed by a Chiropteran Queen's arrival.

 _What else is new?_

After the fight with Haji at the villa, she'd gotten into her car and started driving. Tears kept gushing periodically into her eyes; it was all she could do to focus on the white lines of the road sliding beneath her wheels.

Her mind kept flickering a byplay of the evening as if on poor film stock: Tórir's strange mismatched eyes, visions of another world, another life, motes of cherry blossoms and the deep thump of blood in Haji's jugular vein, her skyrocketing _thirst_ …

Too much.

Everything _too much._

She'd not meant to drive up to the Miyagusuku tombs. Yet she finds herself here anyway. The night-chill creeps through her clothes. She is aching all over, giving off a whiff of sweat and stale sex. She should've showered before taking off. But she hadn't planned on Haji intercepting her at the villa. Hadn't planned on a replay of their interlude beneath the cherry tree, or the byplay of her own repulsive blood lust.

It is still there. But, alone, she needn't act on it.

It's why she didn't tell Haji where she was going. Or text her family. Better for those with lives to get on with them. Hers is dwindling to madness with Diva's loss.

 _Diva…_

Saya draws the crystallized rock from her pocket. There is starlight caught in its facets, winking off its red topography.

"You used to love starry nights like these, Dad," she says. "Sometimes we'd go on drives after the sun went down. Remember? Riku would be busy with homework. Kai would be hanging out with his friends. We wouldn't see him until he came stumbling home at two or three in the morning, all scuffed up." She sighs. "You always told me not to worry. He was growing up. And growing up had its phases. _Nankurunaisa_ , right? It'll all work out."

She strolls down the pathway, her fingers tracing the tall ancient stone. She has always liked this place. It has a strangely maternal air, like a womb that can stow away all the secrets of interminable time and fickle humanity alike.

This is where she began. Where she will return again, when her Long Sleep arrives.

 _And when I wake up again?_

 _What will I have left?_

Tears fill her eyes. She swipes them away.

"I miss you, Dad," she goes on. "I wish we could talk. I'm not sure how to talk to the others anymore. They only ever tell me the same thing. _Rest and get better._ But what for? I've done what I set out to do. Riku is gone. Kai has moved on. The girls... they're both wonderful. But I'm not a part of their lives. I'm just visiting for a while. It's the same with Haji."

She hasn't spoken it out loud before. She's circumnavigated the dread for months, like a storm-tossed ship at the edges of a maelstrom.

Now the words spin through her, unmoored and terrifying.

"I'm trying to work past it, Dad," she whispers. "I'm trying to get on with my life. But I keep falling back on memories of the past. I think of Vietnam. I think of you at Yanbaru, all red and broken. Or Riku, after Diva... I think of _Diva_ the most. This is the life she wanted. _My_ life. My friends and family and the freedom to be myself. I should be grateful for it. I should be out there making new memories. But—"

 _But what's the point?_

She's done her duty. But it hasn't atoned for her past. Not truly. This second chance isn't something she's earned. It is a cosmic cheat won in a shell-game; it could just as easily have been Diva's.

She doesn't deserve to be alive. Not if her sister isn't.

She isn't so sunken into self-pity to trace the thought to its bleakest conclusion. But it makes everything... harder. Harder to wake up, harder to sleep, harder to lose herself in lovemaking, harder to smile for those who love her.

It's why she's come to the family tombs, she realizes. To revisit the days when she was just _Saya. S_ imple and ordinary, with nothing on her mind but high-jumps and hanging out with Kaori and hurrying home for dinner with Dad and Riku and Kai.

None of which are possible now.

She leans inertly against the stone wall. Tears slide down her face, drying in the snapping wind. Diva's stone is warm in her palm.

"I don't know what I am anymore, Dad." She's had the thought a million times since her Awakening. Now the words beat a tattoo in her skull, reshaping into something else. "I don't know what I'm becoming."

 _Becoming_.

Like a schoolgirl declaring she is studying to become a doctor. But that's not how she means it. She wants to know what sense her own self makes, when she was alive a hundred years ago and will be a hundred years from now, her present as uncertain as her future, whether she is in Okinawa today or floating in the blackness of space tomorrow.

Wherever she goes, there she'll be. Eternally out of sorts.

"Can people be... haunted, Dad?" she whispers. "Like houses full of evil spirits? Remember how you used to say _Mabuya mabuya muduimisori_ whenever we'd see a car wreck? _Return my soul to me._ You told me it was because everytime you see something gruesome, your spirit leaps out of your body. So you have to call out until it comes back to you." She swallows. "I wonder... if Diva's spirit crawled into me after I killed her. Maybe that's why I keep seeing her everywhere. Hearing her voice. When she was alive, I could always sense when she was nearby. But now... it's like she's under my skin. Like we're the same person."

She trails off, the craziness of her words echoing in the wind.

Maybe that's all it is? Not spiritual convergence, but plain insanity? Like Diva in her tower, she's become isolated in a cell of her mind. Playing make-believe with figments of delirium.

"Maybe," she whispers, "Haji is right? Maybe I should see a doctor? I can feel myself slipping away. Becoming... something else."

 _How do you know you aren't becoming stronger?_ says a voice inside her.

It is Diva's voice. Yet it is intimate and gentle, not some evil stranger commanding her to slash her wrists or hurt her family. In fact, every time she's heard the Diva-voice, it hasn't meant any harm. It is a cajoling tug at her consciousness: Diva's fingers on her mind's sleeve, inviting her to have a quiet internal conversation, sister to sister.

 _Come with me, Saya._

She shakes it off, like a cat shimmying off a spray of water. Shoves Diva's rock into her pocket.

It is time to go home. To find Haji, and apologize for running off. To agree that she needs to see a counselor, and ask Julia to make an appointment.

She isn't possessed by Diva's shade. Or by _anything_. The dead stay dead.

It is the living who must go on, through the excruciating slog of life.

"I'll be back soon, Dad."

She touches her fingers to her lips and skims them across the tomb. It absorbs the caress the same way it did her words.

A silent promise that she can always return.

At the winding stone stairs, Saya feels the weight of the endless night in her body. A yawn catches her. Maybe she should take a cat-nap in her car? It's a long drive back to the villa. Best to avoid any traffic mishaps.

In her head, Diva snorts, _Like you'll die if there's a crash._

 _I'd wreck my car,_ Says shoots back. _Anyway. What do you care? A dose of antipsychotics and you'll be gone for good._

Diva titters. _That's not how it works, big sister._

She has nearly at the bottom when there is a rustling from the fountain grass. She tenses, ears pricked. A venomous hiss rises into the air. She watches a spade-shaped head peek from the shrubs. Not a lizard or a toad. The shape of a viper's head.

It is a _habu._ Its scales are patterned light and dark, its eyes a flat unnerving glint of yellow.

Saya freezes. For a moment it is like seeing each of her nightmares piled on top of each other. She half-expects the snake to whisper—

 _Saya_.

But the _habu_ doesn't utter a word. It glides forward, its scales made glossy by the starlight. ISaya hears it breathing, a low pressurized _ssss ssss ssss_.

Uneasily, Saya steps back. She senses no menace from the thing. It is like any wild animal—curious, opportunistic. Yet the déjà vu it churns up in her is dizzying.

"You wantin' to kill him, or kiss him?"

The voice, speaking at her back, startles her. A female voice, like lush dark smoke. The kind of voice that some women have, a deep timbre of harmonics with the power to either haunt or heal.

Saya whirls.

What she sees makes her relax. It is a _yuta_. A shamaness. Her skin is pale russet against her milky white kimono, her angular face lined by age and weather. In her late fifties, give or take, yet there is something mischievously youthful in her luminous dark eyes, her imperfectly stifled smile. A widow's peak of fine gray peeks out from under her clean white headwrap, and mottled burn-marks trace the line of her sinewy neck.

Taking a puff on her _kiseru,_ she exhales a plume of smoke that diffuses into laughter.

" _Tch._ Don't go showin' me such a face. I'd get to thinkin' you kissed him for real."

Him?

The _habu_. The viper has already slithered into the tall grass. Startled by the woman's arrival, or heralding it?

Saya tries to shake it off. Yet the woman's appearance, which wouldn't have been premonitory in the light of day, strikes her at this hour as unnerving.

Then again, where would a _yuta_ be but at the tombs? In the Ryukyus, there remains a powerful belief in _onarigami_ —the idea that the spiritual sphere belongs to women. In the olden times, this dictum allowed Ryukyuan women authority on multiple levels: in families, in communities, in the state during the Kingdom era. The most powerful figures were the _noro_ —state-sanctioned priestesses. But the _noro_ were ideologues of a patriarchal system, devoting their powers to the betterment of men.

More dangerous still were the _noro's_ social shadows: self-declared shamanesses who arose spontaneously into their calling.

Known as _yuta_ , or _kaminchuo_ —literally _kami person_ —a majority of them were widows or divorcees. According to traditional lore, they are destined from birth to hold a special connection with the _kami_. According to more cynical rumor, most are fraudsters, or witches, or lunatics.

Yet, despite a history of persecution dating as far back as the Confucian times, they still wield enormous influence in Okinawan culture.

Saya remembers George describing them as spirit mediums. They were consulted for everything from marriage to illness to exorcism. _Isha-hanbun, Yuta-hanbun_ , he liked to say. _Depend half on the doctor, half on the yuta,_ a proverb rooted in the belief that it was necessary to understand an affliction's physical and spiritual roots alike.

 _Maybe I should ask for a consultation?_ Saya thinks, not with irony but a chill.

"What's the matter, little star? You lookin' white as rice porridge."

"I-I'm fine." Saya forces a little smile. "I thought you were a ghost."

"Ghost?" This provokes the _yuta_ into belly-laughter. "Is that what's callin' you from your cozy bed? Angry ancestors whisperin' complaints?"

 _Yes_. "N-No." She gestures behind her. "I was visiting the family tomb."

"At this hour?" The _yuta_ takes a puff on her pipe, quick as a bite. "Inauspicious for anythin' _but_ ghosts to be visitin.' "

Her patois is pure _Uchinaguchi_. The same version Dad used to adopt when he'd sing folksy songs, or the twang that comes into Kai's words when he's angry or slurring his speech after too much _sake_. It fills Saya with a gloomy nostalgia. This is the part of Okinawa, its charm and uniqueness, that she so rarely encounters anymore in the modernized— _Tokyofied_ —concrete jungles of Naha.

She manages a shake of the head. "I'm not a ghost. Just a traveler."

"All ghosts is travelin' someplace, _saa_?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Wouldn't you?" The _yuta's_ sharp gaze catches hers, and Saya feels herself skewered. There is something intensely spooky about the other woman's scrutiny. Like a hundred needles making incisions across the surface of her skin. "Got a real ghostly look t'you. What's the matter, little star? You in difficulty?"

"I…" Saya's reflex is denial. With family and strangers alike. But weariness stalls her brain. She gropes for words, fails, and whispers, "Is it so obvious?"

The _yuta_ snuffs out the beginnings of a smile. "Answer a question with question and we'll be gettin' nowhere. Out with it. What's ailin' you? You prayin' to be rid of a baby?"

"What? _No_."

"Prayin' _for_ a baby? Well. Better here'n Kuburabari."

"Kuburabari?"

The _yuta_ sighs. "Nothin' chills my old bones faster'n a Ryukyu girl forgettin' her roots. _Kuburabari_! It's a crevice in the cliffs near the Kubura village. It's where women jumped if they was in pup. If they landed on the other side, it meant they'd be havin' strong sons." She spits into the grass. "Lies and foolishness. It was part o' the _nintozei_ —the taxation system. Taxin' bodies, not monies. Pregnant women was forced to jump so they'd be cullin' the population."

"I didn't know that." Saya bites her lip. "I'm not, um, here for that, though."

"Here for a pinch o' passion? There's _torikabuto_ growin' near the tombs. Enough to rut up a stampede."

"What's _torikabuto_?"

The sigh prolongs itself. " _What's torikabuto_ , she asks? It's Mother Root, little star!" She gestures to the patch of cowl-shaped purple flowers growing out of the cracks in the tombs. In the moonlight, their vein-shot petals hold a macabre allure. "Goin' by many names. Monkshood. Devil's Helmet. Wolfsbane."

"Isn't it poisonous?"

"Anythin' is, if abused." Her smile evaporates. "Womenfolk harvest 'em on a full moon. Take 'em to get the womb-blood flowin.' Get _kweein_ by the next moonrise."

She uses the equivalent of the Japanese _koeru—_ to get big with child. The dialect is difficult to decode, but the more Saya listens, the easier it becomes to understand.

"Womenfolk use 'em for man difficulty, too." The _yuta_ rubs her lower-belly. "Pain in the _fugan_ when he's takin' you? Dryness in the _hoo_? Now don't go blushin'! Plenty o' girls like you messin' with men you'd as soon be rid of. Fallin' for a string o' sweet words in the ear. Remember: _Kuchi ganga naa ya yakutatan_. A smooth talker ain't nothin' but trouble."

"It's not that either."

"Ain't it?" The woman eyes Saya cryptically. "Lookin' all _nachi-akasun_ as you do, I'm thinkin' there's difficulty inside you. In the body and mind." She taps her temple. "Feelin' crowded in there? Somethin' strange windin' through your bones and behind your eyes, sittin' like a face behind your own?"

"I—"

Saya's pulse races faster than her thoughts. She should shake her head, bid a polite farewell and get into her car. But the woman's gaze holds an uncanny gravity that lures her in. It is so different from the way Kai looks at her, dread concealed beneath a veneer of gruffness. So different from Haji's clear-eyed assessment, which probes her depths gently, but always warily.

She is tired, she realizes, of being surrounded by men's questioning gazes. They love her, but their love is becoming a cage. Always scrutinizing her and smothering her and needing her to be _Okay_. Fearing that she will become a basketcase, a danger, a replica of Diva.

Begging her, without words, to deny one half of herself.

Saya takes a deep breath. "What do you know… about ghosts? About the dead talking to the living?"

The _yuta_ refills her pipe and sticks it back in her mouth, where it rolls to one side with the artfulness of practice. Her words float out on a pungent cloud. "You havin' trouble with _majimung_?"

She uses the native term for _haunter_. Saya hesitates, then shakes her head. "Not _majimung._ I don't think so."

"What then?"

"I—" Again, she considers fleeing. This is _crazy_. Kai has always scoffed that _yuta_ are charlatans. Why is she telling this woman about herself—least of all secrets she can't even disclose to Haji? Yet the words come without forethought. "It's my sister. My dead sister."

"Dead how long?"

"Long. Years now."

"Close, the two o' you?"

"No."

"Try better'n that, little star. Sister wouldn't come knockin' unless she was wantin' to see you. How'd she pass?"

The woman's haggard face is softened in sympathy. The pipe smoke hangs ambiguously between her and Saya. Yet her eyes burn through with extraordinary focus.

The pained pinch in Saya's chest, stoppering the angry bubble of loss for months, breaks open. She dissolves into tears. "She—she's dead. I killed her. It's my fault she—my fault for everything. I'm a bad person. I always have been. I-I tried to fix things but it... I couldn't help. Nothing could help her. She's gone and I... I should be too. I asked to go with her. Why am I still here? I shouldn't be! I _shouldn't_!"

"Shouldn't." the _yuta_ echoes quietly. "But you're here, ain't you?"

Saya shakes her head. Her shoulders spasm; she hears herself making awful choking sobs. The deluge of tears is bottomless.

"It's no use. I don't deserve to be here. I don't deserve—"

"Not my place to go tellin' you what you deserve, little star," the _yuta_ says. "This sister. Tell me 'bout her. No—wait. Lemme tell you."

"Wh-what?"

She lays a hand on Saya's wrist. The other woman's fingers are strong and knobbled. No calluses, but rough splotches of burns that have a texture like sandpaper. Saya half-expects to feel a jolt where their skins touch, some preternatural affirmation of power.

But it is just an ordinary touch. An ordinary woman's fire-coarsened hands.

Tracing Saya's palm, she says, "Close to your age, this sister, _saa_? More'n close. Twins. You first, she next."

"How—how do you—?"

The woman keeps murmuring, "Like yourself, wasn't she? Strong-willed. Troubled. Surrounded by men who saw to her, but never saw _her_."

"I—"

"Empty heart. Empty womb. A red sea of sadness." A fog settles into the _yuta's_ eyes. Her monologue grows increasingly trancelike. "Mmm. I see what you was sayin.' Not close at all, the two of you. Not close—but bound together. Her to you. You to her. Even now she clings to you. Mmmmm." A silky sound thrums in the woman's voicebox, like the beginning of a song. A familiar, terrifying song. "She's clutchin' at you tight. I feel it. Her nails in your skin. Her voice curlin' up and down your body. She's tryin' to warn you."

Fear crawls through the gooseflesh of Saya's body. There is an urgent need to wrench her hand away. To shut the woman up before she goes any further.

But she can't _move_.

The _yuta's_ voice drifts in a stupor, somehow untethered from her body. Her eyes shine black and the air around her vibrates like a tuning fork between strikes. "Not just your sister. I see others. Eyes like hers. Eyes like yours. They're talkin' to you from your sister. _Through_ her. I see their shapes. Blood and bone. Ice and fire. Their bodies burnin' with power. Power to give you, for what lies ahead. If you're brave enough to take it. Brave enough… to become."

 _Become_.

The word strikes Saya like a scimitar.

She tugs at her hand. "Stop—"

The _yuta_ stays on, her strength absolute. "I see empires fallen. Armies raised. I see a battlefield. Bodies of the dead. I see blood. Yours. His. I see a snake in the grass. In your arms. In your mouth. A snake, but not a snake at all, it's a sign, it's warnin' you—"

" _That's enough_!"

Saya wrenches her arm away.

The _yuta_ stumbles. Her eyes aren't hers at all: they are a black absence from which blacker shapes seem to spring loose, hissing and slithering, fangs bared. Staring at her, Saya feels herself teetering on the cusp of something vast and dreadful Knowledge of thousands of lifetimes that will crack her skull apart like eggshell if it pours into her.

Then the _yuta_ blinks, and the feeling is gone.

"Hmm." Groggily, she scrubs a palm across her eyes. Then: "Saya."

Saya recoils, heartbeat thudding. "Wh-what?"

"Your name. It's Saya, eh?"

"I—"

The _yuta_ smiles. Winsomely ordinary again, as if the lapse never occurred. "Yu Shimabuku."

"What?"

"What they call me. Yu Shimabuku. Auntie Yu."

She shuffles past Saya, humming tunelessly to herself. Unnerved, Saya watches her go. She half-wants to grab and shake her. Demand to know what just happened. She wants to clutch her own hair and _scream_ , until the scene pops like a bubble and delivers her back in bed, awakened from a nightmare.

But the stars are luminously bright in the sky. The scent of summer is strong in her nostrils. The _chig-chig-chig_ of cicadas echoes inside her skull.

She is wide awake.

"Beggin' pardon, little star. No _shiibai-jaara_ like the forest, _saa_?"

 _Shiibai-jaara_? Why is she talking about chamber pots?

Saya glances around. The _yuta_ —Yu Shimabuku, Auntie Yu, whatever she calls herself—squats at the edge of the treeline. Matter-of-factly, she hikes up her kimono. Her urine rustles into the leaves.

Cringing, Saya spins away. The woman pees for a minor eternity, clucking to herself about how it's been years since she's experienced _nama-shiibai_ —the bladder letting go out of sheer terror.

After a moment, she calls out, "Was your mother one too?"

"Wh-what?"

"A _monoshiri_?"

Saya frowns. " _Mono...shiri_?"

The other woman sighs exasperatedly over the _trickle-trickle_ of water. "You're shamin' me, little star. _Nmarijima nu kutuba wasshii nee kuni n wasshiin._ To forget your native tongue is to forget your motherland. A _monoshiri!_ One who knows things. A vessel for the _kami_. Was your mother one?"

"I-I don't know. I never knew my mother."

"Don't be knowin' your mother. Don't be knowin your sister. Is it any wonder there's so much _gata-gata_ in your skull?" Auntie Yu straightens and shakes down her skirts. The fanfare of sandaled feet on weeds signals her return. "I'm thinkin' your mother was a _monoshiri_. I'm thinkin' she passed it to you. To your sister _more'n_ you, as like as not."

Saya shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about. My sister... was insane. A monster."

 _Just like me._

Auntie Yu scoffs. "Insane. Monster. Don't go usin' words cooked up by scared little men. They've been callin' the _kaminchuo_ insane for years. My own husband went callin' me the silliest things. _Crazy woman. Bad wife_. At first, I believed him. Sickly thing, I was. Scared of my life. Scared of myself. Since I was young, I'd heard what others couldn't. I kept thinkin' it was madness creepin' upon me. Like with my mother. Like my grandmother." She relights her pipe. Smoke spirals from her nostrils. "It weren't madness. It was the _kami-daari._ The curse of the gods. When it happens, there's no fightin' it."

"So... how does it happen?" Saya asks, trying for a passably normal tone, despite her jittery pulse.

The old woman shrugs. "An accident. A death. A stillbirth. For me, it was fire. Fire settin' ablaze my home. Takin' my husband and children." Her voice slows in remembrance. "Can never forget it. The smell. The _screams_. I lived—but all marked up to always be knowin' what I lost." She waves at the burns mottling her skin. "I was a wreck after the _nanka_. Wailin' and tearin' at my hair. Talkin' _furimanuii_ day an' night. Eatin' nothing the villagers brought me. _Shinkee_ , they called me. The crazy one." She sighs. "Except it weren't craziness. It was the malaise fallin' over me. Punishment for not listenin' to what the _kami_ were sayin'."

"And what _were_ they saying?"

"Oh, little star. They're sayin' as many things as people. They're all around us—the bedchamber, the kitchen, the piss-pot. They're scarin' and supervisin', informin' and influencin'. You got the fire _kami_. The _fiii nu kang_. The ancestral _kami_. The _futuki_. The _kami_ of the spirit. _Mabui_." The starlight clings to her features, silver and dust. "Bein' a vessel for the _kami_... it ain't a simple conversation. You're hearin' not the words but their echoes. They're not always meanin' what you think they do."

Saya's chest is crowded with a wing-beat flutter. Confusion. Dread. "When you touched me. You saw things. What were they?"

Aunti Yu's grin is a rictus: tiny glints of eyes and teeth like dice on tangents. "I more'n saw, little star. I _felt_. From the first, clappin' eyes on you, I felt. All the trouble'n strife in you. All the pain. Pain like fire, burnin' you inside out. Burnin' anyone fool enough to touch you." Inexpicably, she winks. "Got yourself a man, _saa_?"

"I—I do."

Poor Haji. She'd taken off in such a rush. What must he have thought?

 _What he already knows._

 _That I'm crazy._

Auntie Yu chuckles knowingly. "Foolish man. Or brave man. Either o' them two. You brought him with you, without bringin' him."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"You smell of him. Didn't wash yourself off before comin' to the tomb, eh? That's tellin' me you feel safest when he's near." A burst of smoke rolls out with her boisterous laughter. "Don't go blushin' like that. You need t'be more _amashita-mun_ than _ama-mun,_ if you're wantin' to live. More daredevil than delicacy. Delicacies is only good for gnawin' on. Don't let no man or beast gnaw away at you. Wise women start sharpenin' their own fangs." A sly smile. "You got a good strong pair. Not just for show."

"Wh-what're you—?"

"Sssh. Listen to Auntie Yu. Listen to the _yuta_ who've been sages and mages and midwives and know what ails man and monster alike. You're a raw gristle of a girl still. Long way to go before bein' crowned anyone's queen. So listen. You need to protect yourself. Fatten up an' sharpen up. Don't go countin' on a man's love to do it. A good shelter love can be. But when you're fightin' to the death it's your own bones carryin' you to victory."

"Fighting to the death?!" Saya's fingers are moist and trembling. She clenches them tight. "What are you—I mean, what did you see? What does it mean? The snakes. My sister. What's _happening_ to me?"

Auntie Yu sighs, as if Saya hasn't spoken. "You burn so bright, little star. Chewin' holes into yourself with those sparks of temper." She pats Saya's shoulder, the way you stroke a fussy child. "Take broth of lotus root. Every night. It'll cool you down. And be patient. Listen to your body, and to your dreams. Your sister is tryin' to tell you things."

"Tell me _what_?"

"Oh ho! That's not for me to be sayin'. It's between you and her. Always, you and her." Her fingers smooth Saya's mussed hair. "She wants you ready for when it happens. When he comes. 'Cause he will." Her gaze hardens. "Two-faced brute, that one. Worse than any _uwabami_. Charmin' the sweet ones an' slitherin' in between their thighs. You mustn't let it happen. You must fight."

"Fight _what_? For God's sake! What are you _talking_ about?"

"Shh. Not ready yet. My little star. My _fushi_. You've a long journey." She unhands Saya's shoulder, with a wistful, motherly abandon. "Come see me when you've become what you're meant to. But be keepin' my advice tucked away until then, _saa_? Take your kisses lightly, but not your dreams. Remember that snakes are messengers, not monsters, and to see one is to be summoned by the ancestors. Remember that _Hanakotoba—_ the language of flowers—is as useful an art as poisons." In a different tone, "And if you're tryin' to get big with daughters, let it be sooner not later. You're no _kwanashi-jooji_. Never will be. Daughters for you will be shields more'n solace. But they'll keep you alive."

Saya blinks. The deluge of information—without sense, without context—makes her head spin. A million questions tremble at the tip of her tongue. But all she can manage is, "My family. Sh-should I tell them about the visions?"

 _About whether I'm crazy—or just possessed?_

Auntie Yu shakes her head. "Secrets ain't for sharin', girlie. They're for keepin' and plannin'."

"But—"

"Ssh. Your foot-soldiers is waitin'."

"What?"

The _yuta_ points with no small amusement. Saya turns.

V and Sachi are at the edge of the stairs. When she spots them, V waves a beefy arm, and starts forward. Sachi stops him. Raised by an Okinawan mother, he knows there are _utaki_ —manmade shrines—not far from the tombs. At this hour of the night, it is still a widely held belief that it is unlucky to approach the site.

"Saya," he calls. "Haji sent us to, umm, fetch you."

"Turn yourself in quietly!" V booms, mock-threatening. "Any sudden moves, and we'll—"

Saya scowls. "Shoot?"

"Well, no. We'll run and hide. 'Cause that's the best advice for when you blow your top."

"She is not blowing her top," Sachi chides quietly. To Saya, "Please?"

Saya's earlier irritation returns. She doesn't need an entourage to take her home, like an escapee from a loony bin. The thought of being treated as the crisis _du jour_ —for the dozenth time since her Awakening—is both aggravating and hurtful.

And if she _is_ unstable, isn't it Haji's fault for goading her into biting him? Is that the kind of temptation she needs, when she trusts herself so little? With _they_ obviously trust her so little?

"Why did Haji send you two?" she asks. "Is he too busy with fangirls to do it himself?"

V clears his throat. "I guess he was worried you'd impale him like last time."

"I still might."

She isn't one to air dirty laundry about her relationships. Least of all matters between her and Haji. But anger keeps rising from the cracked surface of her exhaustion

Behind her, Auntie Yu clucks her tongue. "Best be gettin' home, girlie."

"But—"

"Go on now." A nudge to her shoulder. "An' remember all I told you. Dreams and daughters. Snakes and sisters. Don't go fearin' none."

 _You haven't told me anything,_ Saya wants to scream. _I have no idea what's happening._

 _To my life._

 _To me._

But her legs are already propelling her down the stairs. V and Sachi, well-trained squires, keep an appropriate distance. They don't ask why she came here. But in their faces are watery echoes of the same concern Kai and Haji bestow on her. Like she might unravel into...

Into what?

 _What you're meant to be,_ Diva whispers.

Something seeps into Saya's bones, a dizzying sense of premonition, an overlapping of worlds and lives like a card deck shuffled.

Swallowing, she glances back at the stairs, where Auntie Yu stood.

Like a card pulled up blank, the space is empty.

* * *

 _Some translations of the Okinawan words:_

Hoo: _vagina._

Furimanuii: _gibberish/crazy talk._

Nachi-akasun: _gloomy/weepy_

Gata-gata: _clamor._

Kwanashi-jooji: _women who get easily pregnant._

 _Kuburabari is a real place with a mighty disturbing history. It can be googled for more info on the taxation system and its draconian effects on Ryukyuan villagers. Also, the yuta's crack at Saya not washing off before visiting the tombs is a reminder of how hella disrespectful she's being. At a minimum, ablutions are performed and offerings are brought along on such visits._

 _I hope this chapter wasn't too over-the-top and mystical-fristical. Also let me know if there are any errors on the Okinawan lore sprinkled into the chapter. My only friend for the topic is the library and google :|_

 _Hope y'all enjoyed! Review, pretty please!_


	19. Fraction

_Happy Friday, everybody! :)_

 _This chapter got done pretty early. We're finally veering into the more supernatural aspects of the story, and Saya's relationships with Diva, and the rest of her family. Behold some bonding between the two Queens (in dreamscape? in the netherworld?) and some nostalgic chitchat between Saya and Kai. Shit will fully hit the fan around ch's 23-24, but in the meantime I'm excited for these filler-ish chapters because I get to dabble with characterization (and foreshadowing!)._

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

 _Dreams and daughters_ , Auntie Yu said. _Snakes and sisters._

 _Don't go fearin' none._

Saya is ready, for the first time in weeks, to try. She lets her mind drift by fractions, her heartbeat slowing, her body approaching the stage of hypnogogic sleep—closer to meditation than slumber. It is a state that replicates her one-track intentness during battles. Reaching, deep inside, for that perfect fragment of calm, her thoughts smoothed into nothingness even as her actions are a furor of slaughter.

This isn't slaughter. This is the determination inside herself to approach a challenge with fists raised. To give everything of herself without an iota of fear.

On cue, the change comes as a law of nature, so inexorable that its passage cannot be stopped. By the time Saya closes her eyes, she forgets it is a dream…

 _"What are you most afraid of?"_

Diva sits by the stream, resting her arms on her drawn-up knees. Her dress is pure white, of a gauzy fabric that reminds Saya of a wedding veil. It matches the color of her skin, pale and soft except for her cheeks, which are imbued with a delicate bloom of pink, like a single drop of blood fallen into milk.

Saya sits beside her, bare feet in the plashing water. She is close enough to feel her sister's breaths. Each exhale is a plume of steam touching her skin. Alive as the flowing blue of the lake.

 _"Do you know?"_ Diva asks. _"Do you know what you're most afraid to lose?"_

 _"I don't,"_ Saya whispers.

 _"No. Why would you?"_ Diva laughs. It is a strange confluence of melodies: broken glass and winter rainfall. _"It's hard to choose, when you have so much. Everything I ever wanted."_

 _"Diva..."_

 _"It's the truth, big sister. Let me have that, at least. It's all I have left."_

Stunned, Saya can't speak. Tears slide from her eyes; she shields her face with her hands so her sister can't see.

It is futile. In reality, in dreams, Diva always sees her for everything she is.

With infinite tenderness, Diva takes Saya's hands. Tugs them away from her face, threading their fingers together. Her hair blows whispery as black cobwebs as she leans close, and her mouth on Saya's forehead, blossoming kisses, is a hot soft flower.

 _"I always forget,"_ Diva says. " _The truth makes you sad. You can only touch it with the tips of your fingers. But if you hold on to it, it burns you."_

 _"Diva, I—"_

Her hands, clasped in Diva's, burn too, as if clutching wildfire. Her skin prickles; she thinks of paper as it catches a spark, crackling and curling into ash. She half-expects their linked fingers to ignite.

Nothing happens.

Diva's fingers stay twined with hers, pale as ice, hot as flame. In death, in life, her hands are always the same. Fitting with Saya's perfectly.

A matched pair.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ Saya whispers. _"I'm sorry for everything that happened to you. I'm sorry I couldn't love you better."_

 _"Did you ever try to?"_

Saya swallows a jagged chunk of ice in her throat. There is no way to answer that question. The words wouldn't be a revelation but a koan.

 _No. Yes._

 _I tried to love you the way I tried to live. Halfway in, halfway out._

Then Diva squeezes her fingers. _"It doesn't matter now. Being dead isn't so terrible. There's no song or music or food or blood. But there is sleep and dreams and reminiscing and wanting."_

 _"How is that... any different from being alive?"_

 _"The sleep never breaks. The dreams never fade. Reminiscing is like breathing. And I always, always want. But then, I always wanted when I was alive, too."_

 _"Wanted what?"_

Diva smiles. Her teeth are tiny white rows of needles. So much hunger in that smile, and in those blue, blue eyes. As if she wants to bite the world in half, chew it to pieces and swallow it down, licking her lips and kissing her teeth in insatiable relish.

That is what her sister's life has done to her, Saya thinks. Pared her down into nothing but pure desire. She is a tangle of drives, more passion than person, spreading herself out and out into infinity.

 _"It's because I was always starving,"_ Diva says, reading Saya like a blood-red mirror. _"You had friends and family and sunlight and sweetness to feed all the different parts of you. I had nothing. Nothing but ugly little truths to fill my belly, and long droughts of silence to drink. Someone weaned on those things wants and wants with every heartbeat. And someone who wants that endlessly isn't easy to love. But—"_

 _"But what?"_

 _"I was always in a place of wanting. Never becoming. Not until now."_

Saya's throat is a knot. She can barely speak.

Then her sister softens _. "That's what you're afraid of, isn't it, Saya? Becoming. You can cut down a hundred of enemies with your sword. Send all my Chevaliers to their deaths. But you don't know how to face the deepest parts of you. You don't know how to step into life, without waiting to die."_

 _"I—"_

The tears seep out again, but Saya barely feels them. Her whole body is crumbling on the inside, not a collapse but a rebirthing, like when something old is flattened to make room for something new. An enormous awful space opening up inside her, where she'd once stored her hatred, sharp edges and broken bits cobbled together for the ugly machinery of revenge.

When Diva gathers her in, she doesn't resist. Sobbing, she curls closer. The crown of her head slides against Diva's chin. Her sister nestles her to her chest, until it feels as though they are tucked together in the same womb. Sharing the same blood, the same dreams.

Diva's hair is a silky drag across Saya's skin. She can smell blood caught in the strands. But it smells like truth, like life, something pure and good.

 _"It's too late for me, sister,"_ Diva says. _"But you have to live in my place. You have to learn patience, the way you learned to swing your sword. How to listen to your body, because it always tells you the truth. How to wear your wants like your skin, not as shameful secrets to hide."_

 _"I can't—"_

Saya's eyes are squeezed shut; Diva's body is a flaming pillar against her. It doesn't hurt. She is desperate for the warmth. Desperate to recapture that sense of rightness she'd never recognized except when she'd first stumbled upon her sister's tower, wreathed in blue roses and the magic of her song.

 _"It's too much,"_ she whispers. _"I keep remembering everything that's broken. Inside. Outside. I keep... remembering you. I'm sorry for what I did... but sorry isn't enough. Living in this world isn't enough."_

 _"It's not,"_ Diva says. _"But it's more than I had. You'll have to make the best of it. You still have friends and family and sunshine and sweetness. And you have my daughters. You kept them in the world. And now you have to watch over them."_

 _"Watch over?"_ Saya lifts her head, and it is like waking from a trance. _"Diva. What's coming? Is something going to happen to—?"_

Diva isn't smiling anymore. Her blue eyes magnetize Saya to full attention. A shadow of foreboding at the edges of her gaze, like storm-threatening weather.

 _"Keep them safe, Saya."_

 _"Diva—"_

 _"Use every fraction of me to do it."_

 _"Diva, what—?"_

But Diva isn't looking at her anymore. Her eyes drift toward the shimmery blue ribbon of the stream. Saya follows her gaze; an afterimage of the rippling water plays on both their faces.

 _"She'll show you the way."_

Diva points. Saya follows the line of her arm to see a snake uncoiling from the water. Dark and glittering, its scales reflecting the shifting glow of the stream. It undulates toward them. Its eyes are blue, astonishingly blue, their color absorbing everything in the forest.

Huddled close to Diva, Saya stares _. "I know that snake..."_

 _"You can learn from her. When you're ready."_

 _"Ready?"_

 _"Ssssh. You're not ready yet, big sister."_ Diva strokes her palms across Saya's face, cradling its shape. Her thumbs smear the drying tears down her cheeks. " _You will be. Soon."_

 _"Soon_." It is a breathless echo: not confusion, but acceptance. Saya stays close, head resting against Diva's shoulder. Soaking in her sister's closeness, her heat. Eyes fixed all the while on the snake.

It stares back, its gaze a burn of endless color.

Waiting.

* * *

"Saya?"

Her eyes snap open.

The dream melts into the present. She is floating in the villa's indoor pool: a star-shaped blot of darkness in the center of phantasmagorical blue. The water's flat surface reminds her of a sheet of ice; it was that same temperature when she'd jumped in a few minutes ago. But it is different now.

Warm as blood.

She lets herself go, not sinking or swimming. Simply adrift. Her mouth is electric with the taste of chlorine; the dappled streaks of light in the pool are hypnotic. She thinks of the plashing water in her dream, the blueness of Diva's eyes. The snake lying in wait.

 _You're not ready yet._

The psychic leftovers burn with eerie vividness. Not an ordinary dream. More like surfacing from a memory hole.

"Saya?"

The sound is diffuse and distant. She's dropped like a stone to the bottom of the pool. A twilit world of luminous blue. Hair dances in wisps across her face. Her feet touch the tiles at the bottom and she floats in the uneven gravity of the water.

At peace.

Since her Awakening, the only thing that centers her mind anymore—beyond steaming-hot bowls of noodles and the bracing shimmer of the sea or the blue serenity of the solarium or the warm resonance of her family's laughter—revolves around oblivion. A blank space beyond struggle or duty.

Death, to be honest.

It makes her feel guilty. Because she has what other people can only daydream of: moonlit strolls in the sand, delicious meals and cool linen sheets, a beautiful lover at her beck and call, a family who accept her for everything she is, everything she's ever done.

Yet none of it makes her as happy as secretly conjuring up unbroken verges of nothingness.

"Saya? _Saya_!"

The voice drags her back into the moment.

Inside her body, undercurrents buffet her into motion. With a kick, she launches herself upward. Her head breaks the surface of the pool with an icy gasp.

She sees Kai standing at the edge. Her brother's entire face is a twist of concern. She realizes she'd been at the bottom of the pool for a disturbingly long time.

Then she realizes she'd leapt in without a stitch of clothing.

" _Kai_!" It is a schoolgirl's squeal of outrage, very different from the Queenliness that arises with Haji. " _Turn your back_!"

"Haji said you'd locked yourself in the basement! How was I supposed to know you were in your birthday suit!?"

" _Turn your back_!"

"All right, all right. _Jeez_."

He grumbles and obeys, as much for her sake as out of embarrassment.

Stumbling out, Saya hurries to snatch up the robe at the lip of the pool. Her skin is rough with gooseflesh, blotchy with blushes. Yanking the robe on, she glowers at Kai. "You couldn't _call_ before dropping by?"

"I called your number like a billion times! You never answered!" _I got worried,_ in other words. "You just took off after the concert. Sachi and V say they found you at the family tombs. What the hell's going on?"

"It's nothing."

"The kind of nothing you won't even tell _Haji_ about?"

"Kai. Drop it." She tries to flex some of the anger from her shoulders. "I just—I needed some alone time."

"Uh huh." His voice is mild, but with blatant undertones of disbelief. "Is that what you were doing in the pool? Drowning-while-alone?"

"I—"

The words catch like rusty nails in her throat. Strength gone from her knees, which tremble so hard she has to sit down on a deck chair before she collapses. A wallop of cold truth.

 _I think I was._

Death is the only way to guarantee that Diva is dead too.

Tears rise. She blots the moisture from the edges of her eyelids.

Her family don't need to know this. Or about her strange conversation at the tombs—the _yuta_ who claimed her sister's spirit was stubbornly clinging to her.

How could they understand? Saya barely comprehends it herself.

She'd shut herself up in the training-room to clear her head. The solarium, overrun with blue roses, offered no respite. Her room, with Diva's rock in the jewelry box, ditto. Haji is in the villa; she can feel him. But that doesn't mean she wants to see him. She still can't believe he'd tried to make her _bite_ him. As if her own monstrousness isn't already between them like a threat.

As if she needs to be reminded, with each breath, that she is no different from Diva.

 _You're not being fair._

 _To Haji. To yourself._

Saya admits reluctantly that she is insecure. That insecurity can be sliced open with a cool eye, peeled down to the bare bones of loss and longing. She wants to fit into this world with a _click_ of rightness. Fit into Haji's life as a friend and a lover, but also as his partner. Someone with agency, and autonomy, and the authenticity of a role.

But she also wants to fit into _herself_.

That is harder to do. With her Awakening, the territory of her mind is as alien as her surroundings. It is like in the early days of her amnesia: a great mass of forgotten things boiling at the margins of her consciousness.

Waiting for the smallest crack to pour through.

Kai is still talking, nervous chatter lapping at her ears. Because he isn't a Chevalier, attuned to every salty spill or digestive gurgle or pheromonal boost in Saya's body. The opacity can be a relief sometimes.

"...Who floats around naked in a pool, anyway? Haven't you heard of chlorine rash?" He exhales disgustedly. "Man, I remember that summer I first took the twins swimming. They came back covered in these weird red blisters."

Muzzily, Saya lifts her head, "...Blisters?"

"Yeah. I nearly called Red Shield. I was afraid it was some freaky Chiroptera-chicken-pox." A self-deprecating snort. "Just pool folliculitis, turns out. Yumi got over it in a coupla hours. But Yuri ran an ugly-ass fever. Shaking and crying all night. I remember Julia and David had left town by then. I was downstairs, trying to find medicine. Then I heard Yuri stop crying."

"What happened?"

Kai glances around. His smile is wry and sidelong, and Saya realizes he's been aware of her distress all along. Simply sowing seeds of distraction.

"Haji. He'd come in through the upstairs window. Well. Flown in _uninvited_ , more like. When I got upstairs, he was sitting on the couch. Yuri was clinging to him like a little clip-on koala. Itty bitty fangs in his wrist. Yumi was at the floor by his feet, with her Crash Bandicoot plushie. It was the first time they'd laid eyes on Haji. But they weren't scared of him at all. It was almost like they knew all about him already. And Haji—" The memory provokes Kai into laughter. "I hadn't seen the bastard in five years. But he acted like nothing was weird at all. Just looked me dead in the eye and said: _Your windows require better locks_. Like he was in town, and had swung by for a visit."

Saya can't help it. She smiles—because the image of a tiny Sayumi and Sayuri clambering over her stoic Chevalier is priceless.

Then again, Haji has always had a patient touch with children. Different from Kai—a boisterous playmate who can speak to them in their own language—yet similar too.

She's never had that talent. Children—like animals—were always wary of her.

Maybe because they sensed something radiating off her that adults had learnt to repress?

"Is that why he decided to stick around?" she manages to ask. "To install better locks on your windows?"

Kai shakes his head. "He didn't settle in Okinawa—in the semi-permanent sense—until twelve years ago. Mostly he was overseas. Hunting Chiropterans with Red Shield. In the early days, I'd go with him. But between the twins, and running Omoro..." His grimace encompasses every fatherly fatigue known to God and Man "By the time I hit forty, I had no time. To eat. To sleep. To _gripe_ over not eating or sleeping. Monster-slaying and migraines do not a restful lifestyle make."

Saya bites back a smile. In these moments, she is struck by how much he resembles their Dad. But beneath that is something steelier: the folds of ordinariness disguising a gunmetal toughness. A warning that this isn't someone to mess with.

 _Is that what Dee sees in him?_

"So, um, what changed?" she asks. "What turned parenting into a joint venture for you and Haji?"

"Less and less Chiropterans. Meaning more time on Haji's hands." Kai stretches with a crick of the spine. His gaze goes past her to the shifting blue shadows of the pool. "A coupla months a year, he'd drop in. Totally out of the blue. At first, it was just to keep tabs on your tomb. Secure the perimeter, evaluate new threats, blah blah. It used to piss me the hell off. But I wasn't gonna turn down the extra help. Yumi and Yuri were a handful. And he had a knack for distracting 'em."

"Distracting them how? Playing cello?"

" _Cello_?" Kai guffaws. "I _wish_. By age eleven, he'd taught them ten different ways to cheat at poker. And twenty more for throwing _kunai_ knives. By age fifteen, they were sassing me in languages I couldn't even speak. By seventeen, they were reading stuff that'd give any sane parent conniptions. _In Search of Lost Time. Story of the Eye. Les Liaisons Something-or-other_."

"... _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_?"

"Whatever. Look—don't get me wrong. In fights, Haji's the fucking paragon of reliability. But the guy is a menace to kidhood."

Saya covers her mouth to stifle unexpected laughter. " _Menace_?"

"Hey, think about it. Your family includes a dude who blows in unannounced at weird hours, like the Prince of Darkness. Usually covered in blood, and carrying blades. He always has gifts in his cello case. He lets you stay up past curfew, to eat ice cream or watch horror-flicks. Takes you rooftop-hopping at night, so you can stargaze or make sandcastles at the beach. Never lectures you, except on posture and table manners." Kai pulls a face, but a twitch to his mouth that suggests he'd enjoyed those days of domestic disorder as much as the twins. "No surprise—the girls adored him. Yuri would latch on to his leg and bawl every time he'd try to leave. Yumi would stow away in his cello case, or hide his shoes. It was crazy. And when he got back, they'd get so excited they'd work themselves into a schedule as nocturnal as his. Squealing around the house wide awake at one in the morning. Stinking up the kitchen with blood-soup recipes, or nearly burning it down with baking experiments."

" _Baking_?"

"Figures he didn't tell you about that." Kai smirks. "He couldn't bake to save his life. Not until Yumi and Yuri showed him the joys of cookie-making."

"God, you're right. He _is_ a menace."

"Ha ha. Hey—he ever tell you about the time he took the twins to Club Camelot?"

"Club Camelot?"

"It was this fancy-ass Roppongi club. Yumi and Yuri were nineteen, and used to squabble over Haji-time like ferrets in a cage. Haji had just hit it big with the _Philharmonic_. He took 'em to Tokyo as a treat. The _Philharmonic_ were performing live, and he had a VIP booth booked out." Kai grins. "From what I hear, it was a nightmare. Yumi and Yuri got soused on champagne with those 24 carot gold flakes. Then they sensed Chiropterans in the crowd and went, um, _hunting wabbit_. Yumi wrecked the entire men's room taking one down. The other one crashed into the lighting system, shorting it out just as Victoire was revving for her big solo. They say the club went pitch dark and pin-drop quiet. Somewhere in the restroom, you could hear Yumi shrieking, _Oneesan! Anta kare no chinchikurin na hari mita? Gya!"_

Saya can't help it. She laughs. His high-pitched mimicry—which translates into _Big sis! Did you see that guy's tiny penis? Yuck!—_ sounds exactly like something Yumi would say.

"By the time they left the club," Kai says, "Haji was _fuming_. Yuri tells me he didn't say a word during the trip, except that his knuckles kept getting whiter and whiter. He flew 'em in personally so I'd be reunited with my demonspawn. I remember sitting out on the veranda with Mao. Haji marched 'em up to me, shook his head, and went, _Plus jamais_. Mao translated it as—"

" _Never again._ " Saya smiles. "He used to say that when we were at the Zoo. Until the next time I got him into trouble."

"Pushover," Kai snorts. "Yumi and Yuri figured that out real quick. They wheedled and whined until he took 'em back to Tokyo next year. I don't remember any body-counts, so things must've improved." His smile fades. "Of course—it wasn't always shiny funtimes. We were both kind of... messed up in those days."

"What do you mean?"

He nixes the question with a shrug. Not _I don't want to talk about it,_ so much as _Nothing you aren't dealing with already_. The deck chair creaks as he settles beside her.

"I was lucky," he admits. "I had the twins to keep me busy. But all Haji had was _work work work_." His gaze shades. "That's probably why he settled in Okinawa. Sometimes, he just wanted to talk about you. Sometimes I did too. We'd sit at the family tombs. Get hammered—well, me, not him—and reminisce like a bunch of grizzled old war-vets. It was pretty fucking pathetic. But that didn't stop us." He lets off a laugh. But his eyes are somber. "I won't pretend the twins didn't help Haji with the wait. He was so awkward around 'em. But also kind of… in awe. Like he couldn't believe they were real. Spending time with them was almost like relearning how to be human for him. But I also think there wasn't a single moment he didn't miss you."

The scenery quivers as if dipped in aspic. Tears gather unexpectedly in Saya's eyes. She swipes them away. Haji… She'd made him suffer so much in her life. But it hadn't occurred, except in fleeting afterthoughts, that he could suffer tenfold more in her absence.

"He hasn't told me any of this," she whispers.

Kai snorts. "Big shocker."

"I don't think it's his fault, exactly. How do you recount thirty years of wasted time? I've missed too much."

"That can't be helped. But if it wasn't for you, there'd be no memories to begin with."

The words are kind, but the true kindness is in how matter-of-fact he is. That is Kai in a nutshell. Mister Normal.

Her throat aches. But her smile stays in place. "You haven't changed, you know that?"

"Nah. Just grayer and wrinklier."

"I'm serious. Every day since my Awakening, I feel like I've intruded on your life. On Haji's. I keep expecting the people I left behind... to still be the ones I remember." She swallows. "They aren't… but they are. I can't explain it."

"We're the same in the ways that count," Kai says, "We never forgot you."

"I haven't forgotten, either. Everyone who gave their lives to the war. Everyone who was... taken too soon."

George. Ms. Clara. Elizaveta. The Schiff.

 _Riku._

The reminder tugs at both of them, a loss so enormous it will never be filled; she feels their little brother's presence as an aching inverse in the space between them. A black hole of grief.

When Kai passes an arm around her, awkwardly, she lets herself fall into the embrace. Her wet hair drips down his shirt.

"You never told the twins," she whispers. "About Riku and Diva, I mean."

"I'm not going to." Kai's voice grinds on itself, the notes both rough and complex. "Joel-san agreed it was a bad idea. We wanted them to have a happy life. But also not to feel they have to be ashamed of who they are. They know the bare bones about Diva. Nothing about... what she did to Riku. If I told them more, they might go on thinking about it. Wondering if they're, I dunno. Bad seeds. That kinda shit messes kids up for life. They're always gonna be different—because they're Chiropterans. But I refuse for them to believe it's a curse."

 _Like I always believed._

It is a shuriken in the space between Saya's ribcage. She winces. But Kai's arm stays around her. Same as always: steady as bedrock.

She whispers, "The thing is... Diva didn't start as a bad seed. I've tried for decades to convince myself otherwise. But—she could've been me. And I could've been her. Joel's Diary said they split us up based on the flip of a _livre_. Can you imagine that?" She flicks her index finger and thumb to mime a coin-toss. "Just a space of a moment. And it changed everything."

She won't tell Kai—like she hasn't told Haji, or anyone—about how she'd snuck the glittery stone of Diva's remains into her dress before the Met detonated. How, in the nights afterward, she'd turned it over and over between her fingers, sick with grief for what had been, and what could have been.

For the first time she could recall, she'd prayed. Prayed for a forgiveness she didn't deserve. She'd prayed for Diva, but also—savagely, selfishly— for herself. She'd prayed for the strength to go on living, when it seemed an affront to enjoy the sunshine, the caring family, the quotidian happiness that encompassed her survival.

Everything her sister would never have.

"Sometimes I wonder... how I can live with that knowledge," she says. "If I even deserve to. There's times—with Haji, with the girls and you—that the guilt goes away. But it always comes back. Maybe it's impossible to think I'll escape it."

Kai is quiet, his thoughts floating off in the susurration of the pool. Then he clears his throat. "For what it's worth, I don't think escape is the point."

"No?"

"We've seen too much. And what we've seen—it's changed us. But we can't flatter ourselves that it's so awful we'll stop living. There's people who've dealt with way worse shit. They keep going. So will we." He meets her eyes. "It's not about escaping, but finding little moments of—I don't know. Becoming, I guess. Becoming something better than what we were."

 _Becoming._

The word pings off her nerves in a way that makes her shiver. Wasn't that what the _yuta_ said?

(Wasn't that what Diva spoke of in her dream?)

She tries a hesitant smile. "A fraction."

Of grace. Of appreciating the small things. The ones that make life tolerable. The ones that, with the past, are twice as precious.

Maybe it's the same for Kai and Dee?

She hesitates a moment. Then: "Kai?"

"Yeah?"

"I-I wanted to ask. Are you, um, taking care of yourself?"

This earns her the upticked eyebrow of _Wtf?_ "Taking _care_ of myself?"

"I-I don't mean to pry. Just—you're always taking care of me. And the twins. In the war, you took care of Riku the same way." She ducks her head. "I guess I'm wondering who takes care of _you_. Are you, um, dating anyone?"

"Dating." Kai's mouth quirks in dry deflection. "Who does _that_ anymore?"

"I'm just asking. Whether you're happy. I feel like—I dunno. The war ate up the best years of your life. " _Or I did, not too different from how I stole Haji's time._ She draws a breath. "If there's someone special in your lif… I hope you'll introduce me."

"What brought this on?"

"I just—I want you to be happy." Her throat burns with an impulse to tears. Not of grief, but renunciation. "I want someone to look out for you. I know—because the girls told me—that you'd tried. With different women. After Mao left…"

Kai looks mildly irked. "Don't bring _that_ up."

"I'm just saying. The past is the past. If there's someone you care about now… someone who wants to be with you…"

She's caught him off-guard, and for a moment it seems as if he might tell her about Dee. Then he laughs, off-kilter. "You trying to set me up with someone?"

"No. Just—"

His arms part, and he rises from the bench. It feels as if their moment of close repose is over.

Then he says, "There is someone..."

"Hm?"

Kai's eyes drift off obliquely. "There _is_ someone. I promise I'll introduce you. Just a head's up: it'll be weird."

"Why weird?"

She can see him considering how best to answer, without revealing too much of himself, or Dee.

"Big changes always are. Moving closer. Moving apart."

 _Moving on,_ she thinks, but doesn't say.

Kai squeezes her shoulder. The touch calls up so much: years of affection and separation, innocence lost and wisdom found, a family torn to pieces, unmade and then remade, every bittersweet iota of struggle that defined the war itself.

And if circumstances had been different, that struggle might have borne out its own surprises. They wouldn't be brother and sister, but something else entirely. A bond as sweet as _mochi_ , as safe as sunshine. A nice low-key life, a nice resting-place. Boiled eggs, bullets, catchball, kitchen-work, motorcycles, bickering, laundry detergent, laughter.

No nerve-wracking highs and catastrophic lows. No bites of silence blooming into the taste of pure sweetness. None of what she has with Haji: the wild wings of fantasy underlaid by the stable exoskeleton of pragmatism.

But life is about trade-offs, right?

She stares at Kai, and as she does, she knows that, extraordinary as Kai is, was, and will always remain, he will never be enough for her. Never be the right fit.

No one fits into every dimension of her life so perfectly. Except Haji.

But even there—and here's a thought—there is something missing. A tiny fraction. Yet sometimes it burns like a grain of sand in the eye.

For a moment, Diva's face glows firefly-bright in her mind. Wincing, she shakes it off.

"Kai?"

"What?"

"Thank you. For, um, cheering me up."

He lifts a shoulder, slyly offhanded. "Hey. Haji told me sappy talk of family might do the trick."

" _Did_ he?"

 _A menace and a mind-reader._

"He also asked me to tell you food's waiting upstairs."

"I'm not—" _Liar_ , her stomach gurgles. Flushing, she crosses her arms over her midriff. "Um. Well. I'll be up in a bit."

"There ya go." Kai smiles. But his low-pitched voice conveys an awkward sincerity. "Look. I'm not sure what the deal is right now between you and Haji. But I hope you make up soon."

"Mm."

"The twins and me are gonna head to Makishi Market tomorrow," he adds. "Run some errands. You should come along."

"I don't know…"

"C'mon. They sell that lobster _sashimi_ you like so much."

"Oh." She hesitates. "Well, maybe…"

"Thatta girl." He ruffles her hair with fraternal vigor. "Anyway. You can't say no, 'cause I already told the twins you'd be there."

" _Kai_."

"And Haji, too." Kai glances toward the stairs, the pose of perfect innocence. "Right, bro?"

Startled, she follows his gaze to the top of the stairs.

Haji is there, watching them with a very peculiar expression. She's seen it before: the subdued absence he'd fall into whenever he'd watch her with Kai and Riku during the war. But he shakes it off at Kai's voice, and nods.

Their eyes catch, and something in Saya softens before she can stop it, a habitual steadying like a breath exhaled.

Then she flashes back to earlier tonight. To the pale stretch of Haji's bared neck, the jugular vein ghostly blue in the moonlight. She sees herself sinking her fangs into him, with an itch of hunger and a simmer of triumph. Except she isn't herself but Diva, her arms thin and white, winding around his shoulders, her laughter cold, vicious, mad...

Cringing, she breaks her gaze.

 _How long will you keep fighting it?_ Diva whispers.

Saya cannot answer. Inside, something uncoils in her belly.

It is like the snake from her dream. It slithers beneath her skin, heavy with promise.

* * *

 _Saya and Haji will meet Tórir in the next installment. Expect intrigue, jealousy, and creepy moments!_

 _As ever, I'm thrilled and delighted by the feedback y'all leave me! Each comment revs me up to finish this tale, despite its ginormous chapter-count! With luck, we shall see the finish line one day!_

 _Review, pretty please!_


	20. Marketplace

_Early update! Half slice-of-life, half angst, and plenty of family times! I had loads of fun writing this one! Especially since this and the next chapter are sort of the 'lull' before the disaster-train hits!_

 _Hope you guys enjoy! Review, pretty please! :)_

* * *

Makishi Public Market

Matsuo, 2 Chome−10,

Okinawa-ken, Naha-shi,

Saya wonders if the shopping trip was a good idea.

After last night's melodrama, she'd slept poorly. Her dreams were a dimensionless blur. She can't recall them except for the taste of clotted blood in her mouth. By the time her family arrives, the noonday sun sits at an angle in the sky: hitting her eyes directly, turning the world into a dark blur.

She half-wants to beg off and crawl back in bed. But Sayumi and Sayuri's exuberance cannot be stymied.

They've borrowed one of Red Shield's minivans. Kai is at the wheel, Haji beside him. He'd left her alone all of last night, and in the morning. Even here, he keeps a diplomatic distance. But Saya feels his eyes periodically stray to her in the rearview mirror.

She is in the first tripleseat, hugged between Yumi and Yuri. In the back, Sachi and V sprawl as best as they can between the cooler and supplies. The van, brand new, with a clean odor of leather and air-freshener, has already accumulated the gathering fug of too many people: rinds of passionfruit, candy wrappers, boots, sweat, clashing deodorants. On the radio, crackling music layers the burble of different voices.

A cheerful migraine in progress.

Yumi and Yuri are neck-deep in discussion about some philosophers called Foucault and Lacan. Saya listens with half-an-ear. Yumi is twirling a curl of her hair between her fingers, saying, _Foucault isn't interested in power, so much as the realization of greater freedom for the self. The limits and possibilities inside the framework that shapes our desires and fears..._ Yuri, her nails drumming in her lap, an ice-blue shade of cyan, says, _Yes, but the framework is the entire point. Lacan says the only freedom is one that comes at the price of surrender, if not submission, to the framework. It isn't an acceptance of a structure so much as a response to that structure, knowing it's always in place..._

The conversation is too abstract for Saya to follow. As her eyes glaze over, Kai smirks in the mirror. "They were both minors in Western philosophy at the Ryūdai. Near as I can tell, it mostly involved Monty Python reruns and hash."

"They can always switch career-tracks later," Haji says.

"Point. They've got all the time in the world. Baby philosophers in 2037. Nuclear physicists in 2060. Fighting cyborgs in the future or floating around in spacesuits with swords." A beat. " _Man_ , there better not be genetically-modified Chiropterans in Zero-G."

"Hope springs eternal."

Haji's cadences lull Saya like the cool ruffle of the wind, and the purring engine. Something about the way he and Kai trade jabs, laconic versus spitfire, reminds her heartbreakingly of when Riku and Dad were alive: a center of trust hidden beneath layers of mockery.

Yet even with her family, Haji is the odd one out. It is there in his eyes, gazing at the whipping trees with the attention of a one-man retinue. A valued teammate, a family-member once removed, he doesn't fully fit in with the boisterous Miyagusuku clan. His connecting link to them is _her_.

Guilt surges. Saya thinks back on his words at the concert. _My life is right here_.

By her side, in support and safekeeping.

Yet she can't recover the feeling of normality between them after the concert. Not while the knowledge (madness? possession?) keeps growing like a tumor inside her.

The whole outing feels like a sham. Playacting normalcy for the people around her, observers and chaperones and...

Family.

Affection catches behind Saya's ribs. Whatever her misgivings, it is good to be with her family. To feel folded into their warmth with a sensation of putting on an old shirt from the drawer.

Haji and her family. It's been a while since she's stopped thinking of them as binary opposites. It is more like having two protective layers: a warm shirt over naked skin.

With Haji, she is always thoroughly known and seen. Always aware of herself, the good and the bad, no matter where she goes. A transparency both scary and freeing. But having her family is like having a dependable layer of protection between herself and the harshness of the world.

 _But how long will it last?_

Then Haji glances over at her. Saya flinches, but doesn't look away.

In the golden glow of the sun, his pale skin is more aristocratic than vampiric, like a black-and-white film star. The long lines of his body under dark clothes, the dark tendrils of his hair, the blue eyes that call up every cliché of winter and sky, the idle piano rhythm of his fingers on the window to the bassline of _Bad Moon Rising_ —all of it tugs something deep inside her.

 _Mine, mine, mine._

Then Kai says: "Betcha six-hundred yen they'll start sucking face soon."

Saya blinks.

But he means Sachi and V. They are folding into increasingly-intersecting angles as the trip passes, nearly touching. Sachi has shucked his boots and is sitting yoga-tied, a book facedown in his lap. V, thick legs shifting uncomfortably to find room behind the bench seat, is sharing the bright little screen of his phone, thumbs typing rapidly. They both are bonding over the works of some tattoo artist called Sergey Berlin. _I mean, I've got a pattern in mind. But it's five grand a session, so I figure I should wait until I know what I'm really after,_ V is muttering. Sachi rolls up his sleeve to display the design on his own arm—stark and black, the swirls of geometry shaped into what Saya realizes is hiragana for _Sayuri_ —saying _, He threatened to charge extra, if I used Yuri's name in his design. That was umm, chutzpah on his part. I had to convince him it was not some weekend fling I'd regret inking on my body..._

Yuri, following Saya's curious gaze, smiles. "It was nine years ago. We visited Little Tokyo in California, after a mission. I was going to get a matching pattern. But Sachi begged me not to."

"Why?" Saya asks.

"Because there is no way to add to perfection," is Sachi's sigh from the back.

V and Yumi mock-gag audibly. But Sachi and Yuri merely exchange those sweet, close-mouthed smiles that Saya is beginning to associate with them. In a way, it's... charming?... how well-suited they are to each other. Their cool, natural reserve reverts to childish cutesiness whenever they are together

Not to say that V and Yumi appear incompatible, but their vibe is different. More physical. The wildness of new love.

She watches Yumi twist around to fetch a packet of _takoyaki_ chips from the back. Watches V sneak a hot glance along the dip of her spine, the bare skin under her rucked-up blouse. Grinning, he leans in to whisper something in her ear, nearly inaudible. Yumi laughs, giddy and husky-edged.

"Hey, Kai," she says. "Can you floor it? I, um, need the bathroom."

" _Tch_. I told you not to drink so much soda, Sayumi!"

"Oh c'mon! Look. Makishi Market is right ahead! Hurry up and find a parking spot!"

"I need to pee, too," V says, perfectly straightfaced.

"Vicente, you are _made_ of bullshit." Kai's grunt is one of rhetorical annoyance. "Since when do Chevaliers need bathroom breaks?"

But he is already speeding up the van.

They pull up near the neon strip of Makishi Market. Kai finesses a parking space at a crowded lot. Spends a minor eternity jerking between drive and reverse as he fits the van _just so_ between the white stripes—an obsessive-compulsive ritual that makes the twins groan and their Chevaliers guffaw. Evidently this occurs every time Kai parks.

In front, Haji passes Kai a perfectly bland look. The very soul of silence, and yet Kai glowers anyway as he switches off the ignition. Evidently this _also_ occurs every time Kai parks.

They spill out of the van in noisy excitement. It's been ages since Saya has visited the marketplace. The rich aromas wafting from the stores leave her nearly stoned.

Yumi stretches, catlike, before snatching up V's hand. "B.R.B!"

"Don't have fun without us!" V grins.

They take off none-too-conspicuously in the direction of the cheap per-hour motels dotting the marketplace.

Blinking, Saya glances at the others. Kai grimaces and rubs his temples. Haji's face holds a weary neutrality that telegraphs: _Not this again_. Yuri and Sachi, arms threaded together, merely shrug.

"If it's any consolation, they won't be long," Yuri says pertly. "Afterward, we can show you some of the nicer stores, Auntie Saya."

"Nicer stores?"

"Mmhmm. Sweets and shellfish. Oil-based perfumes. Teas. Anything you like."

"Um, I don't know..."

"Relax. It'll be fun!"

Before Saya can protest, she and Sachi are beelining toward an outdoor stall, aromatic with mouthwatering _chawanmushi_ —steamed-egg custard. It is the sort of heavy fare Saya wouldn't ordinarily associate with someone as fussy as Sayuri. Yet she lets Sachi buy her a bowl, and spoon it into her mouth with relish.

Watching them—keeping half-a-mind to the rowdy duo of V and Yumi—Saya thinks: constancy and thrills. These rarely blossom in the same relationship. So you take what matters most to you—short-term, long-term—and try not to let it go.

"Saya?"

A cool touch on her shoulder. She glances up at Haji.

"Wh-What?"

He hesitates. His eyes scope out the crowded marketplace, two blue crosshairs. "You needn't stay long, if you are not up to it."

"It's fine."

Her mind has its own tricks for remembering and forgetting. Their argument at the concert has already been tucked into a corner. The visions and her conversation with the _yuta_ are harder to forget: a knot of tension pounding away in her temples.

But right now she doesn't want to recall last night, or its after-echoes. Everything lately has been _Angst Angst Angst_ , her loved-ones relegated to afterthoughts. She'd done the same in the war, and what a dreadful mess that had created.

She wants, since her Awakening, to concentrate on her family.

Including Haji.

Blushing, she touches his arm—a bodily apology without the apology. "Have you, um, been here before?"

Haji's eyebrows lift at the touch, dry but by no means disapproving. "A few times. Sayumi and Sayuri do their shopping here."

"Mm." She dares a smile. "Kai told me about that yesterday. And your cookie-making adventures."

"It was an interesting pastime." Understated amusement buoys his voice.

"How come you never bake _me_ any cookies?"

"Would you like me to?"

She'd _like_ a good number of things. Headache grips her temples, but her Chevalier knows a trick of two to alleviate it.

"M-Maybe later," she stammers. "We didn't get to spend much time together at the concert, did we?"

"We did. But..." _It ended poorly,_ his eyes say.

Shyly, she threads their fingers together. "Well, we have today. Let's try to make the most of it?"

Haji squeezes her hand. The touch calls up all her stymied longing in the van. Her pulse spikes. Of course Haji feels it; his own gaze softens and darkens, dropping from her eyes to her mouth.

It is a prelude to a kiss that never comes, yet somehow better than a kiss.

She can't imagine them doing what V and Yumi do—dashing off at full-pelt toward a motel room. Nor can she imagine them getting a matching set of tattoos, in a lovestruck fit of naivety like Sachi and Yuri. Yet both impulses are there.

Thrills and constancy, she thinks. In Haji, those two things fold together so seamlessly that the difference is meaningless.

Then Kai claps a hand on both their shoulders. "Not to interrupt the eye-fucking—" Saya squawks, and Haji twitches in affront, "—But we're wasting time. The market closes at nine, and I need to get supplies for Omoro. Let's go."

The _Sakae-cho_ —Naha's old downtown—hasn't changed drastically in the last three decades. The meandering strip of market is still festooned in fairylights, neon signboards and colorful awnings. The streets stink of rotting durian and fish, but also savory aromas of cooking that seize Saya with an almost alcoholic delight.

Deep-fried treats are everywhere: _tempura, korokke, sata andagi_. Tall green glasses of guava juice. Bowls of jewel-toned sea-grapes. The sidewalks are crowded with jostling movement: native Okinawans toting bundles of groceries, tourists gawking over the merchandise, bicyclists darting between pedestrians. Stalls overspill with tropical fruits and vegetables, their colors psychedelic in the bright lights. Others are strung with pigs' heads, or oil-slicked bodies of ducks, or vibrant catches of lobsters, mussels, parrotfish, amberjack, all laid out on slabs of ice like precious centerpieces.

Saya takes it all in, entranced. "This place is bigger than I remember."

Kai snorts. "It also sells way more touristy trash."

He gestures to the tables heaped with painted _shisa_ statuettes. Others, their wares nestled in excelsior, boast a garish riot of blown-glass figurines. Pretty frippery for visitors to take home.

 _Kokusaidori Crap_ , Saya remembers George once calling it, in reference to Naha's Main Street, which caters largely to tourists.

Something burns deep in her bones at the scenery: not nostalgia but homecoming. Even during this downpour of disorientation, it is amazing to be surrounded by so much dazzling _life_.

Just like in the war.

" _Hai tai_!"

Kai glances around. "Huh. That was quick."

"Yeah. The, er, bathroom wasn't too crowded."

Yumi and V, sweaty and smiling, are back. A blood scent overlays them; Yumi has knotted a cheap multicolored scarf from one of the stalls around her neck, and V's collar is buttoned up high despite the humidity. It makes Saya realize, with a jolt, that feeding and fu— _lovemaking_ —go hand-in-hand for them.

It strikes her own straitlaced sensibilities as... not an obscenity but an uneasy reminder.

 _"You have not fed from me since your Awakening."_

How can she? Haji is her lover, not a feeding-station. She can't bring herself to relish the most hideous appetites of her Chiropteran nature, or what they say about her. How inextricably they tie her to Diva. And the idea of Haji feeding from _her_...

 _Is it being like Diva that scares you?_

Or is it something else? Banishing weakness, and inhabiting her full self?

Her cheeks burn. She doesn't drop her hand from Haji's. Instead her fingers knot painfully through his. He looks at her curiously, but she can't meet his gaze. Not without giving away that queasy mix of want and withdrawal that seems to define everything she feels about him nowadays.

Then her eyes meet Yumi and Yuri's, and her brittleness smooths into something nearly genuine. "Who's up for picking fabrics? I need a kimono."

* * *

She's forgotten how disorienting marketplaces can be.

The colors swirl around her like a carnival on fast-forward. The fluorescent lights make her skin vibrate. The entire place smells halfway between a reeking trashcan and a sumptuous bento-box.

Yet Saya has forgotten to be wary, in the company of her family, and feels secure enough to cope with the reminders of the war resurfacing.

It won't last. But for the moment she is giddy and nearly free, treating her senses to dollop after dollop of sensory stimuli.

Saymi and Sayuri, clutching her arms on either side, coax her into the heart of the market. Saya allows herself to be led. Haji and Kai trail behind her, empty-handed, followed by Sachi and V, sullenly laden with cloth-wrapped parcels and shopping bags.

The girls have dragged them all through the colorful warrens of Makishi. First to the textiles floor. Beautiful patterns and silky fabrics, the styles ranging from summer to winter. The three Queens buy a matching trio of _yukatas_ in ice blue, sunset red, and pale peach, the _obis_ embroidered in white sakura. At a perfume stall, filled with rows of bottles in rainbow shades, they coo like doves over the fragrances and essential-oils, departing with a bagful of goodies that smell like a collision between a spring garden and a Chinese herb shop. From a poky little patisserie, they sample the sweetest, stickiest, softest _mochi_ on display, giggling at the harried shopkeeper with that half-imperious, half-playful girls-night-out chemistry. At the food court on the second floor, they toast with tiny glasses of chilled _Awamori_ —a beverage distilled from indica rice—before chasing it down with steaming bowls of porcupine fish soup.

It is, unarguably, the most fun Saya has had since her Awakening. There is an edge of déjà vu: the family outing in Paris, years ago, when Riku was alive.

The vibe Sayumi and Sayuri radiate is the same: an easy warmth that lures everyone else in.

Their conversation with Saya meanders from raunchy to frivolous to serious and back again, not quite intimate because they don't truly know their _Auntie_ well enough for that, but definitely getting there. Cute new fashions, dance moves, Kurosawa films, politics, their favorite weapons (for Sayuri, it is the _sai—_ for Sayumi, the _o-naginata_ ), the proper technique for decapitating Chiropterans, how they met their Chevaliers (for Sayuri, the gun-barrel smoothness of an old partnership transforming into love's prismatic luster—for Sayumi, a catastrophe shot through with miracle, her favorite boytoy ripped apart by a Chiropteran, with she closeby to save him with a slit palm and a kiss), the perfect recipe for blood-soup, the awfulness of too much spare time, the joys of uninterrupted sleep and snacks and sex.

"Never _Do The Do_ before a big mission," Yuri advises sagely. They are in the electronics section of the market, each with styrofoam cups of sugarcane juice. In the background, Kai, Sachi and V pore excitedly over a heap of bootleg DVDs. Haji keeps solemn watch over the shopping bags they've accrued. "I make Sachi stay on the couch the night before. No good chopping heads off if you're all jelly-legged."

"You're so superstitious, Yuri." Yumi slurps from her straw. "Pre-missions are when the _quality_ rutting happens. All that bottled-up tension has to go somewhere."

"That tension is best worked off with training. Not that you or V would know _discipline_ if it smacked you in the face."

"Depends." An eyebrow-quirk. "Are we talking the Sadean flavor?"

"Ha ha. Does V even know how to _spell_ that word?"

" _Nope_ ," Yumi says cheerfully. "That's how I prefer it. Wasn't it Françoise Sagan who said she liked her men to behave like men? Strong and childish."

"With a ninth-grade reading level."

"He has redeeming qualities."

"A big dick is not a redeeming quality." A beat. "Although I admit it makes up for a lot."

"See? Sachi's got you sprung for the same reason."

"Sachi's got me _sprung_ because his Montesquieu is as impeccable as his marksmanship."

"That, and you're a sucker for musicians."

Yuri's eyes go dreamy. "It's his hands. I could write a novel on his hands. Sometimes I watch him playing guitar or field-stripping his .300 Win Mag and think—"

"Don't make me gag!"

" _Also_? He's got enough braincells to know pre-battle abstinence is a tactical advantage."

" _Tactical advantage_? What is that a byword for? _Headassery_?" Yumi sticks out her tongue. "Anyway, why not just go French? Play the Pillow Queen, let him do the work, kick him out of bed after?"

"Fair trade, not free trade, Yumi."

"It's no fun unless it's free once in a while."

"Then your definition of what constitutes a _relationship_ needs work."

"V doesn't mind. He knows it's for a good cause. And—" a wicked smile, "—the post-battle sex is even better. All those juicy endorphins swimming around. Once that high hits me, I swear I'm up for anything. French, English, Greek..."

"TMI."

"The love going Greek. Human. Chevalier. It doesn't matter."

"Except Chevaliers don't whine about their jobs mid-nookie. Or go into Instant Snore Mode after one round. Or expect you to cook dinner after."

" _Preach_." Laughing, they high-five each other. Then: "Shit. Sorry, Saya. I forgot we're supposed to keep it clean around you."

"Um..."

Saya blushes. Whenever the twins start talking this way, with such blithe frankness, she never knows whether to cover her ears or outright bolt. She wasn't always this bashful; certainly not at the Zoo. Not even during her schoolgirl days in Okinawa, naive, but possessing a healthy dose of curiosity. But afterward, swallowed by the black maw of the war, sex became another non-priority.

Another facet of the world, like relationships, happiness, _life_ , that wasn't meant for her.

She envies that in the twins: their zest, their carefreeness, their choices. But she's glad for it, too.

 _They'll never suffer as Diva and I did._

 _Not while I'm alive._

"Okay. Subject change," Yuri says, with either quick perception or her own innate grace. "We've already set the Bechdel Test on fire and peed on the ashes."

Yumi slurps up the dregs through her straw. "Does it count if you're discussing the mechanics more than the men?"

"Afraid so."

" _Damn_. That's just embarrassing."

"You started it."

"Yeah. Well. Learn to swerve a conversation the way you do a dick."

"There you go again..."

This time, despite her burning face, Saya sprays laughter and drops of sugarcane juice everywhere.

They troop haphazardly toward the market's fringes. On a moment's lull, while the girls are distracted by some blown-glass crockery, Saya finds a bench jeweler. Baubles shine and beads shimmer at the entrance. The owner, a sparrow-chested woman puffing a cigarette, looks Saya askance as she steps in.

Nervously, Saya says, "Um. I'd like to have a necklace made."

The owner nods. "Do you have a stone in mind?"

"I do."

And she transfers Diva's red rock—bundled in handkerchief—into the woman's hands.

Twenty minutes later, Saya rejoins the crowd. Her new necklace is snugly hidden beneath the pan collar of her pink dress. The rock, glittering like sucked-on pop rock candy, feels warm as a secret, and as sharp.

She's lost her family in the crush. But it doesn't matter. Between the necklace and the pleasant exercise, her mood has steadied. It's enough to be outdoors, in the richly-textured market.

She drifts past a shaved-ice stall. There, two little girls are examining the technicolor treats behind the refrigerated glass. Both wear matching yellow frocks, their dark hair twisting in braids down their backs. They touch small fingers to the glass longingly, taking bunny-hoppy steps as they peer at the decorative display.

When they catch Saya looking, they giggle and swivel away. After a few seconds, they peek at her, eyes twinkling and smiles shy.

 _Twins_ , Saya thinks, and smiles back.

It's like having a bird's-eye view into Sayumi and Sayuri's childhood. Or maybe into the childhood she and Diva could've had, if…

A shadow falls behind her. Dread twines around her like an electrical cord. The sense of _Someone's walking on my grave…_

"Miss Saya?"

She jerks. "What—? _Oh_."

The first thing she sees is the snake. He holds it cradled in a glass jar of irradiated yellow liquid. The snake's skin is a glittering mottle of diamond patterns, black and white. Its teeth are bared mid-bite, the points sharp enough to slice a human hair in two.

Glancing up, the next thing she sees are the man's eyes: a mismatched glint of brown and blue. Beneath the sweep of ghostly eyelashes, they radiate the same bite-sharp intensity.

"Miss Saya?" He smiles with startled pleasure. "Remember me? Tórir. We met at the concert."

"I—"

"How funny to see you here. Are you shopping with your family?"

"Um—"

Again, Saya's gaze flits to the snake. The disembodied dread expands inside her. She thinks of the—dream? vision?—at the pool. Like smudges of tar, Diva's words cling to her mind.

 _"You can learn from her. When you're ready."_

"Miss Saya? Are you all right?" Tórir loses some surface cheer. "Forgive me. I should not have snuck up that way."

"It... It's fine." She clears her throat. "I've seen such a big _habu_ before."

"Hm?" Tórir hefts the jar for closer inspection. "Quite a beauty, isn't she? I have developed a taste for the vintage. Especially with _Sh_ _ō_ _ch_ _ū_."

"I've never tried that."

"It is exceptional. The one I prefer contains brown sugar. It gives it a smooth but earthy tang."

"I see." The strange sensation—like a cat with its fur bristling—settles down. She dares a smile. "So this is what you meant by 'polymath'? A historian, a philosopher, and a wine connoisseur on the side?"

He cracks a dry laugh. In the bars of butterscotch sunlight falling through the awnings, he is as handsome as at the concert. Where before he'd been impeccably swathed in a dark suit, today his powerful frame is casually concealed beneath a sky-blue buttondown shirt, Chinos, and a pair of sandals too scuffed to be true. A leather satchel, half-zipped and showing the well-thumbed spines of books, is slung from his shoulder.

The collegiate trappings are irrelevant. The two-toned eyes and coppery hair lend him a touch of eternal enchantment. Like something from a Norse myth.

Their gazes meet, and Saya's pulse skips over itself. She is aware of how close his standing. The breeze releases the faint cologney scent of his body. It pulls a thread of memory through her: a greenish highland whiff that reminds her of _home_.

In the next beat, she shakes it off.

 _This better not be a rerun of the concert._

She'd nearly swooned at his feet that time. The fact that it was a mystifying vision didn't make it any less pathetic.

"Connoisseur is too strong a word," Tórir says. "Aficionado, perhaps. One a good day." He gestures to the jar. "I prefer this seller because he owns a _habu_ farm. The snakes are bred specifically for the wine. Not plucked from the wilds and butchered. I could not abide that. Much as I enjoy a glass of _habushu_ , I admire the snakes far more."

"Admire?"

"Yes!" Exuberance lights his eyes up in nebulous shades "The _habu_ is a fascinating creature. Quiet, swift, deadly. Oneyay ofyay ayay indkay!"

"'One of a kind'?" she translates. "How so?"

"Where to start? While cobras and black mambas use nerve poisons, the _habu's_ venom is hemorrhagenic. It destroys blood vessels and causes internal bleeding." He crooks a brow. "Not that the _habu_ seeks out trouble. The opposite. It prefers to lie in wait. Thriving in the darkest places." He points at the snake's spade-shaped skull. "There are depressions called pit organs at each side of its head. Extremely sensitive to heat. It uses them to 'see' infra-red radiation. That is how it can zero in on threats, even in complete darkness. Only one other creature possesses such an ability."

"Oh?"

"Bats. In particular the _Desmodontinae_. The ones known as—"

"Vampire bats," Saya says quietly.

His smile widens at the shared knowledge. "I take it you read the _National Geographic_ as well?"

"Mm." It's more plausible than the truth. She dips her gaze, her hand going self-consciously to the necklace hidden under her dress. "Okinawa has its share of curious animals."

"None like the _habu_." His face twists in amusement, eyes crinkling. "Truth be told, I have long admired them. They are the perfect predators. _Survivors_. Their fangs are like razor syringes. And like syringes, replaceable. If a _habu_ loses one fang, another grows in its place. Even if it is toothless, it never starves. There are records of them living for years on only water." He pats the jar fondly. "Locals say this vintage offers similar endurance."

His enthusiasm—so different from Haji's reserved refinement—is attractive. Saya tries to match it with a teasing air. "Is that why you're buying it? For those late nights at the hospital?"

"Or late nights in general." He grins lazily. "You know the other reason _habushu_ is so popular, yes?"

"Other reason?"

"The snake mates for hours at a stretch. Locals recommend it as an aphrodisiac." He chuckles. "Of course, as a physician, I would first prefer to evaluate the patient's underlying physical and psychological issues. But for many, I suppose it is less embarrassing than asking for Cialis at the drugstore."

Saya snuffs out the beginnings of a smile. "Is that why you're buying the wine?"

"Far from it." The strangely-colored orbits of his eyes glow into hers. "The shopkeeper warned me not to overindulge. Otherwise I would… embarrass myself publicly."

"Try not to 'overindulge', then."

"Now where is the fun in that?"

Saya blushes. It shouldn't be such tricky work, flirty chitchat with the opposite sex. Not for a jaded Queen who has survived a century-old war, and seen the spectrum of sin in all its vagaries. Yet this is the second time she's dissolved into schoolgirl stutters with him.

 _He has a bad effect on you._

 _Like too much snake-wine._

Tempting to blame it on his looks. But it's not so simple. She's known her share of attractive men, yet few of them have exerted such a tactile thrall. Solomon was one. Haji is another. But with both cases—as with Tórir—the quality that attracted her isn't the princely packaging. It's the live-wire energy beneath the calm façade. The sense of a body smoothly inhabiting its skin.

Then why does her spine keep prickling? It is like standing at the edge of a steep cliff—disorienting yet exciting.

"Are your family here also?" Tórir inquires. "And Haji?"

Saya nods. "They've, um. They've run off somewhere."

"Like myself at the concert." He offers a wry apology of a smile. "Forgive me. The arrival of your friend frightened me away."

"Friend?" _Haji._ She fumbles for a reply. "Th-that's fine. The paparazzi swooped in ten seconds later. You're lucky you weren't trampled."

"Perhaps. But it was a wasted opportunity. If not an autograph, I could have asked for a handshake."

"You still can. If I catch up with them."

Polite irresolution crosses Tórir's face. "No. Please. I would not want to—ah! Careful!"

The twin girls, with cupfuls of tutti-fruity ice cream, skip past him and Saya. One of them stumbles against Tórir. At the same moment, Tórir drops to one knee, catching her by the shoulder, saving her from plopping facedown in the dirt.

Gently, he helps her up. "All right, little one?"

The girl blinks owlishly. Her treat—and knees—are safely unscathed.

"Good." He ruffles her hair. "It would be a shame to waste such tasty sweets."

The little girl stares, too young to offer the Standard Smile for strangers. When Tórir unhands her, she scampers off to join her sister. Together, they disappear into the crowd.

Tórir watches them go with a funny-sad, funny-sweet look. Rising, he dusts off his knee. "Twins, were they not?"

"Mm," Saya nods. "That was a quick save."

"Good reflexes." His gaze shades nostalgically. "I grew up on a fishing village. As a boy, a great deal of my time was spent by the wharf. One had to be spry to man the boats. But also strong enough to steer them toward port in a storm." He smiles. "I sometimes think it is where I got my wanderlust. At night, the horizon was always such a starry promise. I longed to sail off and see the world."

Curiosity stirs through Saya. "And where was 'home'?"

"A place called Gjógv. On the Faroe Islands."

"Oh!" Wasn't that the place Haji mentioned? The one with the— "Puffins?"

He bursts into laughter, and her ears feel roasted with embarrassment. She'd not meant to blurt it out.

"Yes," he wheezes. "Puffins. We had our share. Also seals. And goats. And too many sheep to count."

Saya's eyes drift to the jar of _habushu_. "No snakes?"

"No. The wrong clime for them. Much too cold." His voice slows with idle speculation. "Or maybe I never saw them. We did have myths about snakes. The tale of Jörmungandr. The world serpent, encircling the seas of the world, biting on his tail."

Saya frowns. "That's a Norse myth, isn't it?"

"Yes. Given the Froyar's unique location, we've had our share of... cross-fertilization. I believe it was in 825 when the earliest Vikings settled at our shores. They brought their lore with them." He quirks a brow. "You know, the symbolism of Jörmungandr is remarkably similar to the cycle of _samsara_ in the Vedic texts of India. Or to the _habu_ in Okinawa. They signify a universal ouroboros. Destructive on the one hand, but essential to the regenerative cycle of nature on the other. An eternal life force. Like—"

"Immortality," Saya says.

" _Yes_." His eyes brighten. A tiny spark of attraction. "You are full of surprises, Saya."

She fumbles with her necklace. It seems indecent, suddenly, to be here. To let him gaze at her that way.

She steps back. "I just read the National Geographic. Same as you."

Tórir chuckles wistfully. But he seems to sense their banter is at an end. "A useful pastime, if nothing else." He performs an elaborate bow. The movement underscores the serpentine smoothness of his body-language—and fills her with surreal slither of déjà vu. "I will let you return to your family, yes?"

"Y-Yeah." The sudden gabble of the marketplace startles her. She realizes, in the ease of conversation with this man, she'd forgotten where she was. "I hope I haven't lost them. Or—"

"Your wallet."

She and Tórir whirl.

Haji is there, sunlight making a golden umbra around his streamlined shape.

"Haji!" Saya straightens her dress, which needs no straightening. "I was looking for you!"

"As was I." He holds out a pair of wallets: one a sleek eelskin in black, the other pink-and-purple with flower prints. "You should take these."

"That is mine!" Tórir exclaims, reaching for the eelskin case. "Where on earth did you—?"

"The twin girls," Haji says. "They are notorious in this marketplace."

"'Notorious'?"

"For pickpocketing. They brush against any foreigner in the crowd. Pretend to stumble, then swipe his pocket for valuables."

"God." Tórir shakes his head. "I did not even notice. How did you catch them?"

"I saw them bump into you." He returns Tórir 's wallet with a robotic courtesy. "A brief chat convinced them to return it."

"Where are they now?"

"I let them go." His eyes flick from Saya to Tórir. "I am sure they had reasons for stealing from another."

Saya's cheeks blaze. She realizes that under her Chevalier's shield of calm simmers a very real hostility. It catches her off-guard. Haji is protective by default. But that is always against bodily threats. This is the first time she's seen him cast such a cool eye of dislike at another man.

(Or is it? He'd always gotten combative with Solomon, too. Even with Kai, there were flashes of passive-aggressive vitriol in the early days.)

It should irritate her. Instead, she feels a gut-wrenching shame.

 _Is this how he felt when I got angry with him about Victoire?_

"Haji. Th-this is Mr. Tórir," she stammers. "I met him at the concert. He's a fan of your work. Especially the, um, _Fantaisie Impromptu_."

"And now I owe you for my wallet." Tórir offers a hand. "I cannot thank you enough."

"No need."

They shake hands civilly. Yet the tension is palpable, a brewing storm of cold front against hot. Tórir's eyes glint at a wicked wattage, as if he's aware how the scene looks and not at all sorry for it. Haji's own look is icily bland, reading the scene with no knowledge, but lethal accuracy. They are both, Saya can't help but think, remarkable-looking men. But where Tórir's attractions are a sinuous, spicy-hot potency, Haji's are a resolute, unnerving stillness. Like a wolf facing off against a viper.

Clearing her throat, she says, "It was nice running into you, Mr. Tórir."

"Please. Just Tórir." He smiles sidelong. The side only she can see. "And the pleasure was all mine. Utbay iyay an'tcay etlay ouyay ogay handemptyay."

Haji decodes the sentence before she can. "You cannot let us go 'empty-handed'?"

"Not when you saved my wallet from the clutches of nefarious thieves!" Rummaging in his satchel, Tórir offers Saya a book. "Please accept this as a token of thanks."

Saya frowns at the title. " _Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved_?"

"I picked it up to decode the Farsi. But it has English translations as well. It is full of lessons. On life. And love."

"Um. Thank you." Tentatively, she takes the book. Their fingers touch, and her pulse skitters. There it is again—that tiny flame of familiarity. She is intensely aware of Tórir's eyes on hers. And of Haji beside her, his expression as emotionless as the arctic blue gaze cataloging their exchange.

Tórir steps back. "It was wonderful to see you, Saya." Then, to Haji. "And you, great Bragi."

Her Chevalier nods, but offers no reaction. His face is smooth as glass.

Turning, Tórir drifts into the crowd.

"Bragi," Saya says. "That's—"

"The Norse God of music." Haji's eyes follow Tórir's retreating shape. "I have seen him before."

"Bragi?"

"Tórir. He was at the boutique where you purchased your pink gown."

"Y-Yeah. He mentioned that at the concert." She forces a smile, trying to cajole him into a lighter mood. "Probably trying to get your autograph."

"Hm."

Haji doesn't look at her. He is still holding her wallet. Without comment he offers it to her. Perfectly polite and absolutely not there.

"Shall we go?"

"Haji—"

"The others are waiting at the parking-lot."

Saya's stomach sinks. She wants to tell him that the scene he'd walked in on wasn't what it looked like. Except her pheromones light up the air like fireflies. Whatever Haji's preternatural faculties can sense about her when she's in the mood, is also open when she's attracted to another man.

 _TMI_ , as her nieces say.

With a Chevalier, that isn't a choice, but a default slide into disaster.

* * *

When she and Haji rejoin the others in the parking-lot, the stores are closing: a fanfare of rattling shutters and dimming lights. Buoyed by an air of buzzed exhaustion, the group piles into the van, laden with shopping bags. The drive back to Naminoue Beach is barely forty minutes. Kai catches every green light, he and the twins trading jibes by rote.

"Don't know why you girls need all those fancy clothes. Everything gets bloodstained anyway."

"Lagerfeld says clothes are a language that interpret reality, Kai."

"Lagerfeld? What the hell is that? An ale house?"

In the back, the awkwardness between Saya and Haji feels like a third presence. Tórir's book, _Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved_ , rests in her hands.

Numbly, she skims its pages, until the crackle of tires on sand signals their destination.

At the beach, her family haul out their booty. Dark sky, starless and smooth, stretches above. Wind blows through the sago palms; there is a bracing salt spray in the air. From the cooler, Sachi and V crack open the last two icy cans of Orion Bīru.

Snatching one away— _Age before immortality, guys_ —Kai sprawls on the hood of the van. Saya climbs up beside him. The metal is toasty warm, making her aware of her own hot skin. Her blood buzzes with recessive guilt.

From the corner of her eye, she can see Haji dispensing the twins' belongings between them. The two girls are squabbling over a pair of shoes, each insisting _she_ saw them first. Haji smooths out the argument, in that patient way of his.

"—the fuck, Yuri?!" Yumi complains, "You don't even _like_ creepers!"

Yuri doesn't budge. "I plan to wear them with my cocktail dress to Michiko's party."

"Maaan, that's not until next Tuesday! I was gonna break them in for the Marines' _biichii paatii_ tomorrow! Maybe even hollow 'em out and stick in extra C-4 for a mission!"

"That is a terrible waste of C-4 _and_ shoes!"

"My C-4! My shoes!"

"Like hell!"

Quietly, Haji says, "Why not purchase a second pair from the market tomorrow?"

Yumi pouts, "It's the principle of the thing! I've only got, like, two good pairs of boots! Yuri has a whole closet-full of Louboutins and Blahniks and Blahboutinwhatevers!"

Yuri examines her immaculate fingernails. "Hardly my fault you go through shoes faster than undies."

"Low-blow, bitch!"

"To paraphrase you: Learn to take the truth the way you take a dick."

Haji exhales. "Sayumi. Sayuri. _Please_."

There is a catty silence. Then, Yuri relents, "I suppose she can borrow them for the barbecue."

"Hell yeah!" Yumi whoops. "Extra space for my explosives!"

"You will _not_ stick C-4 into them!"

"Aw maaaan. Why not?"

"I said borrow—not deface!"

"I was only gonna do the soles! Not like I'm borrowing Sachi to carve a smiley face on his butt!"

"I'd forgive the latter. Not the former."

Yumi returns to her original gambit. "But you don't even _like_ creepers!"

"Ladies." Haji lifts the shoebox overhead. "I am going to toss these in the ocean."

Yumi and Yuri's shrill _Noooos_ jangle in the air. Yuri snatches the box away, cradling it to her chest. Yumi stews with crossed arms and a thunderous moue. Under her breath, she mutters, "I'll just stick the C-4 in her bento-box."

Haji shakes his head. "Sayumi."

Saya expects the girl to huff. But to her surprise, she relents without further protest, and goes on tip-toe for a goodnight kiss—a noisy peck on the sharp point of Haji's cheek. Yuri's kiss is sweeter and more proprietary. Evidently she must, even here, lay victorious claim to whatever her sister values.

They remind Saya of a little wolf-pack, the girls vying against each other with little nudges and pokes their claim to one of Haji's arms. And Haji, watching them with low-key indulgence. Like they are quizzical creatures beyond his ken. But also—mysteriously, miraculously—all his.

 _Maybe he wishes they were._

It hits to her for the first time, a boot in the gut. Wincing, she forces the idea away.

Haji would undoubtedly make a fine father. But she is the worst candidate for motherhood, and it doesn't matter anyway.

Nothing matters but her family.

She smiles when Haji lays a light palm on Yuri's forehead. "Hay fever?"

"Um. No-o-o."

"Are you certain? You seem warmish."

Yumi smiles slyly. "It's the creepers. Bet she's allergic."

Yuri aims a smart kick at her sister's shin. Haji sighs but otherwise lets the exchange pass.

From the van, FM Koza, 76.1, is playing a medley of 'Classic Hits.' It disorients Saya; she used to sing along to those catchy numbers with Dad, as a high schooler. She smiles faintly as a song—remixed into drumbeats and piano in all the scintillating pathos of New-Age Jazz—floats in.

"Oh _yeah_. That's my jam! Turn it up!"

Yumi does a few flapper-esque steps: waving her hands, rolling her knees, all her wild curls falling around her beaming face.

V guffaws, mockery meeting affection. " _Lame_!"

"You've got no taste, V." Yuri leaps in with a swish of pleated skirts. Catching her sister's hand, their shoe-squabble already forgotten, she swings her in. Soon they are weaving effortlessly in and out of each other's orbit, palms linked and heels kicking.

Kai chuckles. "You're like something out of that old movie. What was it? The Great Gutsy?"

"The Great Gatsby," Haji says.

"Whatever."

 _Don't go 'round tonight  
It's bound to take your life  
There's a bad moon on the rise_

Giggling, Saya watches V trip into the girls' circle. Awkward at first, but then he is following their moves along as intently as if in a contest. Sachi, leaning lazily against the driver's door, flicks on the high beams.

"Get your wiggle on."

The three dancers swoon in the spotlight of headlamps, striking classic Charlestron poses, arms swinging and legs kicking, a hilariously exaggerated floor-show. By the time the trumpet riffs have swung into the rowdy chorus, they have devolved into freestyle steps in no way suited to the music. V is busting air-guitar moves with strumming fret-fingers and spastic head-banging. Yumi throws in something from an 80s Madonna video, voguing with a pizzazz that is half liquid, half lightning. Yuri has dragged Sachi into the circle. Their rendition of _The Robot_ dissolves Saya into stitches.

"You're all crazy!" Kai shouts.

The twins, inspired by their captive audience, are now reeling off a performance that perfectly captures the grace of ballet with the kinetic force of b-boying.

Saya's giggles fade into a hush as first Yumi, then Yuri, lift their arms over their heads, sinuously, like swaying cobras. Their fingers lace together, then lock tight; Yumi flings herself up into the air, rolling and somersaulting—a swan-dive in reverse—to do a handstand on her sister's palms.

For a breathtaking moment, they remain balanced in that pose, two bodies perpendicular to each other, without even the line of gravity to intersect them. Then Yumi scissors her legs and launches into a crazy whirlgig. Spinning into the sky, up then down, catching the steady hands of her sister again. They layer the demonstration, twists and torques, sometimes switching places, sometimes resuming them, sprightly bodies leaping with equal ease from the sand to the sky.

Saya stares, transfixed and strangely moved.

The trust between the girls in undeniable. But what gets her are their grins: identical curls of pure glee.

As if each will always be there to catch the other when she falls.

Saya had missed that certainty—and so much more—with Diva. Missed dancing with her. Swimming with her. Eating with her. Playing with her.

Missed ... her.

On reflex, her fingers go to her necklace. A newly-minted memento of what can never be.

For the grand finale, Yumi swings herself into the air again, poised on the patient prop of Yuri's palms. Then both girls _pivot_ , in opposite directions, a movement so dreamlike yet so charged with momentum it reminds Saya of two cyclones unraveling North and South. Their hands break free; Yuri swirls like quicksilver across the sand, her dress billowing around her legs, while Yumi hangs suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, arms and legs outspread, a star mid-tumble. Then she tucks herself into a ball, spinning in triple-time, before landing soft as a feather on the ground to underscore the swanlike sweep of her sister's curtsy.

The last chord of the song thrums into stillness.

In the broken-open quiet, Saya erupts into applause. " _Bravo_!"

Yumi and Yuri collapse on the sand, cackling madly. Yumi aims a V-for-victory sign into the sky.

"Thank you! We're here from Saturday till eternity!"

* * *

 _Bad Moon Rising - Jazz version by New Orleans Party Asylum House of the Rising Sun._

 _Say it ten times faster._

 _Expect some (or lots?) of smut in the next chapter! Leave shiny reviews and I may get finished with it faster. Just sayin' :)_


	21. Fantaisie Impromptu

_Huzzaah! My internet stopped being crap long enough for me to post!_

 _Smut ahead. All minors beware. I should also note it's the least 'vanilla' smut I've written for this pairing - but nothing truly traumatic or transgressive (and hilariously it's in missionary position). I always laugh at labels like 'vanilla' and 'kink' because of the implication that there is 1) something either aberrant/exciting to the latter and subsequently default/boring about the former, and 2) the idea that_ _power_ _dynamics, and their corollaries of domination and submission, are somehow absent from 'normal' sex, and recognizable only through use of whips, chains, other paraphernalia, which: lmfao._

 _Tirade aside, I hope y'all enjoy!_ _Feedback is the engine that powers this fic, so if there's something you like/dislike, don't hesitate to let me know!_

 _Now on with the smut!_

* * *

Saya had never gone swimming with Diva.

Of course, there were a thousand things she had never done with Diva, beyond chasing her sister every waking moment of her life, the way a drowner chases for air.

She had certainly never imagined doing what they are doing now: running hand-in-hand along the glittering lip of the lake, their bare feet kicking up swirls of snow. A fog hangs across the gleaming sheet of the water, deepening into milky groundmist at the tree line. The forest is a winter dreamland, dusted as if with powdered sugar.

But Saya isn't cold.

 _"Come on, sister!"_ Diva coaxes. " _Jump into the water with me!"_

 _"It'll be freezing!"_

 _"So? We'll feel right at home!"_

Next they both are running—quick as quicksilver—through the lacing of snow, to dive into the heart of the lake.

Saya gasps at the blinding shock of it. The water shoots straight up her nose. Fills her lungs like an icy radiance, a sweet mineral tang spreading in the back of her throat. Then she and Diva are cresting the surface, spitting out water, sinuses throbbing and laughter resonant.

 _"See?"_ Diva giggles _. "There's nothing to it! Just remember the trick. All the way in—without stopping."_

 _"I-I didn't know,"_ Saya says. _"I didn't think I could."_

 _"If you keep thinking, you never will at all."_

Diva smiles. She smells electric and alluringly cool. But her arms are hot as they pass around Saya.

The waning moon makes a zigzag path across the water. Their two bodies, breaking the glittering surface, are like something from a fairytale. Mermaids basking in the night-glow.

 _"I wanted to swim with you,"_ Diva says. _"After you set me free from my tower. Eat with you. Dance with you. But I never could."_

Saya's throat cramps. She has to wring the words out from deep in her muscles _. "I'm sorry. It was all messed up in those days. We... were all messed up."_

 _"I know."_

Diva floats back, facing her, tethered by nothing but their interlaced fingers. The moonlight makes the tips of her bare shoulders glow, turning her skin into the pure white of a marble bust.

 _"Things are always messed up, though,"_ she says. _"I remember. Every time I opened my eyes, there was a war. Among the humans. Between us. So much noise everywhere. But that didn't mean I had to be lost in it. It was better to make a quiet space inside myself. That way, I would never lose_ me _."_

Saya nods, letting the words lap at her like the coolness of the lake.

In her waking hours, remembering Diva, her mind is full of perils. But in this moment everything is pure and simple. The night is theirs, and the lake is theirs, with their two dark heads drifting side by side on its shimmery surface, nothing to stop their joy from going forward.

 _"You need to make a space inside yourself too, Saya_ ," Diva says. _"It mustn't be a locked box. Otherwise you'll become trapped by it. Yours should be like music. Something you carry with you everywhere, keeping the notes deep inside. You can let it sweeten or slow or speed up to suit your needs. But the center should always be yours."_

 _"Always... mine?"_

 _"That way you'll always know yourself. When your Chevalier is inside you, and you're afraid you'll break to pieces instead of being made whole. When the battle rages around you, and you can't tell yourself apart from the screaming and the blood and that sharp, sharp sword you secretly love more than sleep or sunlight or sex."_

Saya's cheeks burn. She tries to dip her gaze away. But Diva is smiling at her, soft and enigmatic, her words like riddles that can only be unraveled here.

 _"To know yourself is to know exactly what you're giving, and what you stand to lose, Saya. That way you'll never disappear, or be shaped by someone else's dreams of you."_ Diva gazes unfocusedly at the overlapping ripples of moonlight across the lake _. "My Chevaliers tried to shape me to their dreams. I never let them. I held tight to my own."_

 _"Your daughters."_

The words fall from Saya's lips. It is as if she is absorbing something that she hadn't before. Old knowledge transmuting into new wisdom, something enormous and powerful and mysterious. Something more than rivalries or wars or betrayals, but the endless stretch of time that spreads beyond them like the lake and the stars.

 _"My daughters,"_ Diva agrees. _"All I ever wanted. I'm sad I couldn't watch them grow. But I'm happy they'll never grow into we became."_

 _"Never."_ Saya's fingers tighten on her sister's _. "I'll make sure of it."_

 _"I know you will."_

 _"I won't let anyone shape their lives, either. They'll be free the way neither of us could be."_

 _"We're finally free too, sister. In our own ways."_

They both drift together across the lake. Saya can feel Diva's pulse beating in her palms. It matches the rhythmic stirring of the water, and the slow sawing of hers and Diva's breaths. Two people in the same place, at the same time. Sharing the same heart.

Beneath the surface, something roughly swishes along her flank.

Saya jerks _. "What was that—?"_

 _"Oh? It's just her."_ The snake, Saya realizes. _"She's waiting for you."_

 _"What?"_

Diva shrugs prettily, her hair dripping in inky tangles around her face. _"Forget about it. It's not time yet."_

 _"Not time for what?"_

Diva doesn't answer.

In graceful strokes, she swims to the middle of the lake. Glowing and amorphous, her body seems a part of the moonlit water, and as unfathomable as it.

But her warm fingers are still threaded with Saya's. Her eyes are blue blossoms of pure love.

 _"Don't worry, big sister,"_ she says. _"I won't let go. Not until you're ready."_

* * *

Saya's eyes flutter open.

Dregs of the dream cling to her. Her body is a languid starfish across the rug. Haji is plucking a book from her fingers.

She'd drifted off by the grand piano, reading _Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved._ The villa, long-emptied of company, holds an unnatural echo. Decades of coasting continents, just her and Haji—yet their privacy always feels strangely decadent.

Haji is a dark shape limned in the brightness of the moon. He stirs through the book's pages with a fingertip.

 _"In the driest whitest stretch/of pain's infinite desert,"_ he says. _"I lost my sanity/and found/this rose."_

It sounds like a quote.

"I, um. Didn't get that far." She tries to read his mood in the dark, fails, and whispers, "Are you still angry?"

"Angry?"

"About before?" She reaches for him, her hands like two quinquefoliate night-flowers. "Tórir is just someone I met. I'm sorry if I—"

"Saya."

"Mm?"

"You know I cannot stay angry with you beyond a moment."

Tenderness shows in his gaze, and in the easy way he melts across her, going from a looming pillar of darkness to a heavy spill of coolness.

Relief gusts through Saya. She circles him in, and sighs as he drops a kiss to her forehead.

It is still stunning, how effortless the fit of their bodies is. She's never known before that she would like a physique composed of pure ivory and bone, or that the scent of rosin overlaying the musk of clean skin would hold such a visceral pull for her, or that the hands she'd want on her body would be so specific: one ghostly pale and sword-grip strong, the other monstrously mismatched yet exquisitely gentle.

Haji's mouth, on hers, is cool as water. But his tongue, tracing past her lips, tastes of something else. Dark and hot and seeping desire into her extremities like a welling of blood.

"Mmmm. Haji?"

"Hm?"

"I _am_ sorry. About before. Yelling at you about Victoire. Running away after the concert. Then the... thing at the market. I shouldn't have—"

"Ssh." He kisses her eyelids. "That is nothing to be sorry for."

"No?"

"The issue is mine. Not yours." Regret sloughs through the dark river of his voice. "I should have the patience to let you grow, Saya. Let you experience what you could not in the war. Right now you may think I am enough. But I want you to know that—"

Saya touches a hand to his mouth. "Don't."

He kisses her fingers, wistful, wanting. "Forgive me. But we should discuss it. I do not know how long I can make you happy. But I will never keep you against your will, either." His eyes are darkly luminous. "I want you to _live_ , Saya. If that means with another man, then—"

Saya stops him again. "I _told_ you not to bring that up. Another man won't 'fix' me. And I'm not with you just until I'm 'fixed.' I'm here because I chose _you_."

Sighing, Haji drops his forehead to hers. His cool breath fans across her face. "I cannot tell you... how grateful that makes me. But I do not want secrets building between us, because you want someone new. Your happiness is what matters. With or without me."

Her lips tic—either up or down, she isn't sure. "Do you think I'd leave you that easily?"

"I think you deserve the freedom to choose."

Saya's eyes fizzle with tears. It is maddening when he gets this way. But that is how Haji is. Always placing his own needs second to hers. Always taking any crumb she manages to offer him, and giving himself to it like a starved man to a feast. Having such a wellspring of love at her fingertips... it's made her careless, the way people become when something so rare is so effortlessly given.

But it also reminds her what truly matters. Solomon, Tórir... they are lessons in the fact that she'll meet men whom she's attracted to. Wildfire crushes, childish fantasies—but not reliable partners. Not like Haji, who fits an indefinable niche in her life. A space between thrill and trust that stirs in her longings far beyond her long sexual deprivation.

No one else has that sense of rightness. He's become, for her, the touchstone of _life_.

Threading her arms around his neck, she traces his lips with hers. "You're wrong."

"Hm?"

"You're wrong if you think I'd choose anyone else. No one suits me like you do. No one's so patient. Even when I know it can't be easy."

"It is not a matter of easy or difficult. You are my reason to go on."

"Even when I'm…" _Crazy_ , "weird?"

"You are doing the best you can."

Is she? Or is she simply wasting this second chance Diva would've killed for?

 _Scratch that._

 _This second chance I_ killed _Diva for._

She flinches. Beneath her blouse, the necklace with Diva's rock absorbs the cached flutter of her heart. She wants to tell him about her meeting with the _yuta_. About Diva, and the dreams. But some instinct tightens its grip on the secret. It's not because she doesn't trust him. It's because she needs _him_ to trust _her_. To believe that she is fine. That the changes inside her aren't a lapse into insanity—but the first signs of healing.

 _Aren't they?_

Then Haji kisses that spot beneath her ear, that seems connected straight to her groin. She shivers. "I'm... I'm not..."

"Hm?"

"I'm not doing my best. You deserve more. Better."

"Saya..."

"I mean it." She darkens, her eyes measuring his own. "I'm figuring things out. Same as you. But the least I can do is give you the benefit of the doubt. You do it for me often enough. Sometimes, it makes me wonder if—"

Misgiving dogs her. Haji has been bolstering her since the war. Keeping her strong until she completes her duty. But what does _he_ want? It never seems to go beyond her happiness. But whatever makes _him_ happy... is that in her power to give?

Peace. Purpose. Place.

Something beyond the superficial pleasures that music and travel and sex can offer.

Shyly, she says, "If things were different, you could have had an ordinary life. Maybe even a family. Instead you're stuck with me, waiting decades on end. And I can't even—"

"Saya. Please." He gathers her closer, face burrowed in her hair. "My life means far more, struggling by your side, than solitary and stagnant without you."

"You say that now..."

" _Always_."

"But what if—?"

He kisses her again, taking the small bubble of sound from her mouth. Kisses as cool and distinct as snowflakes. Each one imparting paragraphs of meaning.

Sighing, Saya folds him closer. God—to _touch_ him. She can't even describe what it is getting to be like. Each time is more... _more_.

Strange, that she'd first pictured Haji as a passive lover. Not that she'd ever fantasized sleeping with him when they were teenagers. But you'd have to be blind not to notice how attractive he is. Or to watch him in the eye of a fight—bright as a blade slicing the battlefield—and not be, well. _Curious_.

Except that his usual manner, somber in a way that cut frivolity off at the root, lent the impression that he might be, if not disconnected from physicality, at least diffident.

Except Saya is learning that there are things, beyond cello or battle, that awaken his quiet ferocity.

"Haji." It is a waver of sound. "Do you want to...?"

"No. Sssh." He sucks hotly at the line of her neck. Inhales, then nuzzles her with a more familiar softness. "Not unless you wish to."

"I-I do. I just—"

Dizzily inarticulate, she renews the kiss. Haji returns it with startling fervor. Then, as if remembering himself, softens those edges before they cut her.

It's always like this. Always a variation of their first time: passion sheathed in tendresse. And it's been wonderful. Honest and natural and sweet, and he always leaves her afterward in a lassitude of sighs, like a stanza from a decadent poem after the flowers and mythology are stripped away.

But always holding back, too.

When they began, it was a necessity. But now...

 _Make a space inside._

It reverberates in her skull. The dream is gone: she can place Diva's voice but not the context. Yet the words fall through her. Not a promise but... a possibility.

"Saya?" Haji's eyes are a soft blue query. "What's wrong?"

"N-Nothing." She wraps herself around him. Traces the sharp point of his scarred cheekbone. "I just want to know... if there is something you'd like us to do?"

"Anything you wish."

"We always do that. But maybe... there is something you'd like from me instead?" Goosebumps bloom across her skin: need, uncertainty. "Something you want to do to me. Or for me to do with you."

They'd argued beneath the cherry tree. Disconnecting versus letting go. The dangers—and differences—of each. Tonight, she is ready to reach a compromise. Something they both can enjoy, without straying too far from the safety of the basics.

Haji's gaze, meeting hers, is puzzled but patient. "What is this about?"

"Nothing. Just... remember I said we should be partners? That includes me taking care of you the same way you do for me."

He lifts one of her hands to his mouth. Drops a cool kiss to the palm that makes her shiver. "You cannot possibly believe I make love to you out of duty."

Blushing, she fumbles free. "I know you don't. But I also don't want to be a—" A phrase Yumi used pops into her mind. "—Pillow Queen?"

" _What_?"

His laugh is mystified and delightfully boyish. The sound stuns Saya's entire central nervous system with the urge to make him repeat it. His expression reminds her what a young man he'd been before becoming her Chevalier, witty and wry-tempered.

"I-I just mean that I want to meet you halfway."

"Halfway in what?"

"Um." Her eyes flicker to his. "Our relationship."

The word drops like onyx into a pool, spreading ripples everywhere.

 _Relationship_.

Not something she has applied to them before. It doesn't encompass the depth and nuance of what flows between her and Haji. But maybe it doesn't have to, because everything she needs to say is underneath the word.

In the gloom, Haji's face reforms into a tender enigma.

Then he drags her against him, a rough splay of claw and a rougher press of lips, and his kiss isn't tender at all. His thumb fits against the killing-point of her jaw, tipping her face up to claim her mouth. His tongue glides past her parted lips as a prerogative. A startled noise rises and dies in Saya's throat. In answer, Haji folds their bodies closer, wielding the kiss without mercy. A bite, a bruise, a breakage.

He's never yet kissed her like this. Always, even in the furor of lovemaking, there is a layer of control like a glass wall between them. Safe and sanitary: keeping the dark mess of emotions in.

The wall is cracking.

Haji's other hand steals up beneath the hem of her dress. Fingertips coasting cool along her thigh. Saya shivers, and he breaks the kiss. His eyes are on her, burning-blue and strangely opaque.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" he asks.

"N-No. Do you—?"

He shakes his head.

"Haji, I meant what I said. If there's something you'd like us to do—"

"Ssh." He breathes a cool kiss across her lips. "Sit up for me."

"I—"

He draws back, releasing her. For a second she is disoriented, bereft. Then Haji's arms slide under her shoulders. He coaxes her to her knees. She lets him move her around, lifting her arms up to have her sundress stripped off, her underthings peeled away.

The cool air raises goosebumps on her bare skin; she shivers. It always feels weirdly illicit, being uncovered before him. In the war, it was pure expedience: his gaze lowered with half-detachment, half-deference. Here, that same unblinking gaze licks her from head to toe, like she is a ripe peach of blessing.

A hot little thrill runs up Saya's spine. By habit, she half-covers her chest with one arm, legs modestly pressed together. "Aren't you going to, um—?"

 _Undress_ , she means to say. But Haji has snatched her close again. The cloth of his jacket is cool and rough against her belly and bare breasts. His kiss is the same: talking hungrily to her as if there is so much bottled up inside him that he cannot say except like this.

Maybe he can't.

She keeps expecting him to urge her back across the rug. To cover her and take command. Keeps expecting force, or filth, or something sharper than the slow sweet ways he always takes her. She is willing to try it, whatever it might be. Curious to uncover what lurks beneath that unflappable wrapping of his, a Matryoshka doll of secrets folded into secrets.

Because hasn't Haji been unfolding her, quietly, patiently, inexorably, since the war? Showing her strange and startling aspects of herself, a symphony played to different styles, while still keeping her recognizably whole?

She doesn't yet know the structure of herself. But with Haji, she will never lose the theme.

Her breath flutters in her chest. But Haji keeps the kisses going. Slow, exquisitely slow. Almost breathing the wordless story of himself into her mouth. He won't touch her: not anywhere that isn't perfectly proper. Hands combing through her hair. Tracing the shape of her neck, her shoulders, her arms.

Saya hears herself mewing, low pleading noises as that familiar desire begins to creep through her: the quivering muscles, the breath-held tension, the blackout edging on desperation.

But Haji senses it and breaks away.

Unbalanced, Saya clutches handfuls of his clothes. It feels like he's kissed the breath out of her lungs. Haji is trembling barely perceptibly himself, the vibrations of his heart palpable through the fabric of his clothes. Tiny messages that a stranger might mistake for stillness.

" _Saya_."

Just one word, and she flushes all over.

Always, he obtains her permission before they make love. This time, it is a thrilling promise.

Slowly, he shifts so he is at her back. The cool clothed length of him presses close, her hair cascading down his chest. He gathers it out of the way, tracing the row of graduated pebbles up her spine with his finger. Saya shivers.

"Haji—what're you—?"

"Sssh."

Holding her against him with his clawed arm, he caresses her body with the other hand. His touch is so light it seems a flirtation. Just a skritch of fingernails, up and down, shoulders to breasts, breasts to hipbones, hipbones to thighs. But as he keeps on, Saya's skin begins to buzz, the elusiveness a strange thrill. More thrilling is being held this way—safe, steady, still—in his arms and against his body.

By degrees, the high-strung static inside her subsides, only to rebuild in a different way. She gasps when he finally cups her breasts in both hands. He squeezes them hard. Catches the nipples in his fingers, tugging until her breaths come on shocky cries. The necklace with Diva's rock trembles against her ribs. He doesn't remove it. He admires the cool chain between cooler fingertips. Strokes down her trembling belly the same way, his palm-span covering the better part. Caressing her legs, kneading the long muscles, before his hand curls between her widespread thighs.

A cool fingertip dabbles in her moisture, then slips gently in. Saya mewls, her hips a wanton twist.

"Ha-Haji—"

"Not yet."

"Mm?"

Her hair stirs where he burrows his cool nose into it, to drop kisses against her ear, along her neck. "Tell me. Who has control?'

"Wh-What?" The word flickers in the expanding darkness of her mind. "You do."

"Do I?"

His lips are a cool flutter on her cheek. The pad of his thumb is cool too, tracing through the wet curls at her mons, giving her clitoris a soft flicking that makes her ripple. It is too much: she tries to cancel the sensation out. To stay aware of everything she is doing, instead of dissolving into skin and strain and pure need.

 _Oh_.

The understanding sparks inside her. Her eyes flutter open.

"I do. I have control."

"Yes." He enfolds himself around her. She feels the hot preternatural energy singing beneath his skin. "I want you to give it to me."

"What?" She rocks restlessly against him. "I-I don't—understand. I told you to take it."

"Taking and giving aren't the same, Saya."

 _Not the same?_

She wants to ask what he means. But with the question mid-bloom on her lips, she understands. She is giving him the power to break her to pieces— _giving_ , not letting him take it, because it will never be his—and he is showing her without words that he isn't insensible of the gift.

But he is also reminding her, because she can't differentiate, that submission isn't the same as surrender.

 _Surrender._

Is that what he wants from her?

"I—"

He catches both her hands in his. Gently squeezes her fingers, bringing them to the grand piano before her. Her fingers touch the keys with airy tinklings. He presses himself tighter against her, a gathering heat trapped between their bodies, his arms laid over hers, cool face alongside her burning one. Her whole body is simmering for him now; her heartbeat practically pulsates through the air.

"Haji—what're you doing—?"

"I want you to play for me."

"Wha—?"

"Your stalker, Tórir... he liked the _Fantaisie Impromptu,_ did he not? Which means there is no accounting for taste." His voice seeps through her like black liqueur. "I've always found Chopin more palatable in your hands than mine."

"This isn't—the time for Chopin."

"I disagree." He licks her ear, before whispering, "Do you remember when I was a boy, and you'd teach me how to play the _Fantaisie Impromptu_ on the piano?"

"Y-Yes..."

"And when I kept getting it wrong, you'd hit my knuckles with a wooden tawse. Remember that, too?"

"Mmm." A wild fear blooms. "Oh God. You're not—g-going to punish me, are you?" For some reason, the idea is both frightening and shamefully titillating.

"No." His voice is a low rasp in her ear. "I want you play the melody. From your memory."

"It's been _ages_. I can't—"

"You can. Trust your own control." His right hand, which had been clasping her wrist, now slides down her belly, between her thighs again. Two fingers circle her entrance before curling wetly, delicately inside, a soft inexorable pressure where he knows she feels it most. She jerks against him.

" _Ah-ah_ —!"

He keeps stroking her. The lightest swirl of his fingertips, again and again, as if stirring wine in a chalice. The sensation twists through her in high-pitched jolts. Behind her, Haji stays motionless. Languid. He cups her jaw in his clawed hand. Turns it to gnaw hungrily at her pulsepoint.

"Play for me, Saya. Let me see how far you get."

"I—"

Is this a sexual fantasy? Or a revenge fantasy? Impossible to tell.

Whimpering, she tries to stop his tormenting hand. But Haji catches her wrist mid-air. He brings her hand back to the keys. A lonely tinkle rings out. Her heart pounds; she is sweaty, overheating. Past the point of arousal. If he strips off his clothes and takes her now, she will surely fly out of her skin.

But Haji keeps her still. His right hand carries on strumming, light, tantalizing, until she has to bite her lip not to sob.

" _Please_ —"

"Ssh. Play for me, Saya. You were always as good at the piano as at the cello."

A cry escapes her. Beneath her knees, the rug is hard and scratchy. She can feel the flesh reddening. And behind her, Haji. Cool and still, his hand making slow seductions that leave her frantic. Reminding her that this need, wild and insatiable, is a fraction of what he'd endured all those decades. When she'd kept him at a distance, hurt and used him, refused his closeness as a friend or his attentions as a lover, he'd stayed because there was already nothing of him that wasn't hers.

That capitulation, terrifying and entire, that she cannot summon in return.

 _Because you're still afraid to know yourself._

Shakily, she poises her fingers over the keys. Wrists at level with the whites. Her thoughts race wildly. The _Fantaisie Impromptu_ , never her favorite, was complicated even when she'd practiced daily. She is going to butcher it now. Her whole body is quivering from the cool fingers teasing between her thighs, the cool breadth of Haji behind her and his cool breath tickling her ear.

Clumsily, she begins. Stumbling through the opening tempo, the glittery notes swirling through the heavy air. One hand dancing through the single notes, the other caught in repetition. Simple time against compound.

Except it is _torture_ to get the timing right. With every arpeggio, her breath hitches. Haji's fingers keep whispering slickly down below. He kisses her ear, gnaws at her neck. Not permitting her to break away. Not stroking fast enough to totally shatter her concentration, nor slow enough that she can fully retain it.

By some miracle, she trips through the eighteenth bar. The music, sweet and sparkling, fills the room. She can almost feel it sinking into her skin. Stirring past memories of the Zoo; recombining them with this torturous, delicious sensation now.

Chills rise on her arms. She hears herself making tiny moans that are drowned by the rich notes.

"Haji." Her head lolls on his shoulder. " _Please_."

"Ssh. Don't stop now, Saya."

It is an entreaty. Music is such an inextricable part of Haji's life. She feels like he is recombining it with his obsession for her. Fusing them into a single exalting leitmotif.

Gasping, she struggles into the twentieth bar. Her fingers are clumsy but sure. She no longer cares about her cramped knees or the scratchy rugs. All she feels is the warm ache of her arousal, Haji's cool body curved over hers, and the music cascading around them.

She is near the thirty-eighth bar when her concentration slips. Haji's hand seals tight between her thighs. Rubbing, rubbing, the exquisite friction driving her insane. Her fingers skid on the keys with a sharp _cling-clang._ Sobbing, she presses back against him.

"Oh—Oh God."

Haji catches her chin, turning her head. And suddenly they are kissing, lost in the heated conversation of mouths and tongues. The music ebbs, forgotten. Frantic, she rocks against his hand. Each sensation is a burst of color behind her tight-shut eyes. His stroking palm is a dull flash of orange. The caressing fingers are sparks of red and green. And the climax is bright hot pulses of white, black, white...

He withdraws his hand before she is finished. She nearly screams with frustration.

"Wait— _please_!"

Kissing her hard, Haji spills her back across the rugs. Their lips break; she pants feverishly into his mouth. She's never felt like this before. Melted into excruciating arousal, on the verge of crying, yet so deliriously _free_.

Haji gasps as she begins wrenching off his clothes—coat, shirt, belt, trousers. In the gloaming, his body is pure art, sharply-cut and smooth as glass, the scars like scrollwork. She drags him closer, her hands greedy and urging, thighs fanning open to align their groins just so.

"Now. _Now_."

When he enters her, her hips caught tight in the cradle of his hands, bright spots explode everywhere, too stark to be beautiful. She cries out. Then they are gone, and there is just Haji, his burning eyes on her, his gritted teeth and seething gasp as he fills her, heavy and possessive.

"Saya." She hears the jitter in his voice. Gratitude and awe. "Saya."

She exhales a sob. He's never taken her this way—so fully and fiercely. Yet it is everything she craves: the saw of their hot gasps and the pulsing fit of their bodies and her legs curling tight against his flanks. Her hips rock against his, once, twice, a burning stretch. It feels good, the way his hugs feel good, and his kisses, and the damp drag of his bare skin.

Good to make space in herself. Good to feel _him_.

 _Who has control?_

It is not a revelation but a reminder.

When he begins, it isn't gentle. He takes her in a rhythm of deep savored strokes, each one resonating through her body, like he can't bear to withdraw too far. Gasping, she holds onto him. Her feet skim down his calves, hands splayed against the sweaty hollow of his lower-back. Letting him work her in this rolling downbeat, the pleasure gathering hotter and hotter until her mind sizzles at the edges.

Lovemaking, she's learning, has different variations. It can be like playing cello, or sparring, or dancing, or a dozen poetic clichés meant to hide from the tactile reality. This is new. The closest she can compare it to—and, _god_ , it's so stupidly obvious—is having conversations with Haji. Learning the language between their bodies, a secret dialogue encoded through skin and pulse and heat. Yet more intense and intimate than any other flow of communication.

Talking to Haji always carries an effortless simplicity not possible with anyone else. Making love to him is the same.

She'd tell him that. But it is impossible for her to cohere the sensations into words. For once, her mind is emptied of anything except a monosyllabic fugue. _Yes. Like that. Harder. So good._

She doesn't need to think. She finds relief in stirring her hips; agitated circles under his maddening weight. The smallest shift blossoms into gorgeous friction, makes her slick and tender and exquisitely sensitive. She hears her ragged little gasps dissolve into shaky sighs—and then, as Haji grunts and sinks in deeper—a single shocked cry, soprano darkening into contralto.

Her climax flutters unexpectedly through her, tremors brushing her skin like moth-wings, bringing relief but no respite. Her palms catch at his hips. He rocks in place, playing the pressures inside her body, nearly triggering another precipitous fall, yet stringing the tension in her groin to an unbearable high. She doesn't even realize her eyes have rolled back until he calls her name—raw and raspy-edged. The most haunting sound in the world.

When her eyes flutter open, he is watching her. A strange expression on his face—a wax and wane of undefinable emotion she sees everytime they make love.

Now, she recognizes it as surrender.

"Still with me?" he whispers.

"Ye-es." She is and she isn't. As if something in herself she'd never known before has broken wide open, and he is filling it. Not just inside her— _everywhere_ —pouring himself into her. Sharing her skin. "Please. Don't stop."

"Sssh. I've got you."

It is a wavering sigh. Hitching in sync with hers as he increases the pace. A rapid rocking, deep, deep, deeper, until another spark unrolls itself up her body, igniting from the core of herself in slow-motion. Haji gasps, and she mews: louder, softer, a song that matches that movements of her body, an undulation of hips and belly that keeps building, and building, until—

" _Oh_!"

His mouth catches hers. It's not a kiss so much as a wet delving bite. She hears herself sobbing, words jerked out of her by desperation— _oh, dieu, je t'en prie, je n'en peux plus—_ and yet her body is eel-slippery, on the exquisite tip of overflow, Haji's hitched growls echoing in her ears _—oui, vous pouvez, encore une fois—_ and then it happens again, the climax rolling through her, a clenching, twisting tidal wave of over-sensitivity, the movements of her pelvis spasmodic as if trying to feed on him.

She wails, and it should be terrifying, but it is _good_. Hot and frantic and free, just another means to express this fizzing stretch of connection between them. And he is so _close_ ; she can see the blue map of veins across the sweep of his neck, where the skin is translucently-pale as rice paper. Her fangs itch to sink in. She finds herself sucking on his jaw, his throat, a mimicry of vampirism. Haji's face goes dreamy and as he tips his head back, lips parted, the sight pierces her with a possessiveness that is nearly feral.

Then she can't help herself anymore. The fangs break skin, blood surging up over her lips. Mindlessly, she swallows, and the more she swallows the more she needs, like water, like air, like—

" _Saya_."

Haji's clawed hand cups her skull. Thumb stroking her cheekbone: beneficence, begging. The seal of her mouth breaks from his neck. Blood drips between them, and they are kissing, close, hot, coppery. She wants to apologize for hurting him. But his mouth opens hungrily against her, expelling growls that are the opposite of pain. His rhythm is intensifying—ruthless, rutting pulses of hips that he's never dared before. Yet each one catches inside her just right, shivering spasms from head to toe, so her breaths dissolve into incoherent _Oh Oh Ohs—_

The fourth orgasm nearly shakes her apart. Sweat-soaked, heat-soaked, blood-soaked.

She doesn't care. There is power in taking him so deep. In tearing into him again, hard and insatiable, with her teeth. In letting her fingers skitter across his arms, sinking into the brachial veins rising down his biceps, until moon-slices of red stamp against his skin and rim her fingernails. Haji's hiss is one of laconic approval. His whole body has become a knotted frieze against hers, muscles quaking and movements intensifying, torturous, relentless, rapturous—but with a restraint that signals his effort to prolong this exquisite punishing ride.

Trembling, Saya rolls her hips, squeezes with her thighs. There is an entire universe of pent-up tension in her, rising and falling, expanding and contracting, faster and faster. Her eyes are squeezed shut and her mouth is open against Haji's, hoarse cries cutting through her ears with an unmusical jangle, two animals caught in a trap.

Until it happens.

A helpless rushing convulsion, all the world dropping away so there is no sound left but her own cries escalating into a _scream_. The echo bursts from her tripwired heart, its beats filling a space in which nothing moves. Nothing matters.

A nucleus of pure emptiness.

And blossoming from the emptiness, the rough scrape of Haji's groan. Drawn from his body, which rapidly coheres from a scattershot of separate sensations: the fullness of him buried impossibly deep; the sporadic shudders across his frame; the unusual mottling of pink across his throat and face.

Then he dissolves on her, inside her. Still closed in heavy, face buried in her hair. She can feel the juddery beats of his heart through his skin, racing at the same tempo as hers. Their gasps, filling the darkness, are a discourse on exhausted serenity.

"Oh." Spots of delirium dance before her eyes. She lets them slip shut. "Oh God."

For a long moment they stay close: sweat-sticky and feverish. Against her forehead, Haji's throat works as he swallows. Straightening on shaky elbows, he is a pale strange moon hanging over Saya's world. A gravitational force luring the tides of her body, her blood, but always tangible.

 _Hers_.

"Are you all right?" he rasps.

"Mmmm. You?"

A kiss, slow and worshipful. She lets her sensorium close to nothing but that hot touch, and the hot shape of him in her arms. The edges of Diva's rock dig bitingly between them.

"That was..." A jitter overrides her words. " _Guh_."

"'Guh'?"

"Can't—do sentences." She smiles, still breathing in ragged wonderment. "Too dead."

"Or alive."

"Tell my legs that. I'm—not sure they work anymore."

Haji smiles. In the semi-dark of the room, hair in disarray and dribbles of blood on his neck, he looks both debauched and dreamy. A masterpiece in chiaroscuro.

Sighing, he rolls off her by degrees. Gathers her in the padlocked curve of his arm, the other sliding down her body, palm nestling between her thighs. Saya shivers, her body welted with rug burns. Shivers again when he kisses her, warm like a mouthful of Syrah in winter. There is a surreal comfort in being held this way: sexual, yet beyond sex. A flutter in her chest—happiness or its opposite?—leaves her enormously shaken.

Then she crumbles into tears.

Haji tenses, "Saya, what's wrong?"

"N-Nothing."

"Sssh. What is it? Did I hurt you?"

"No, I just—" Mortified, she swipes at her face. God, why does this keep _happening_? "I'm okay. I promise."

"What's the matter?" His eyes hold that familiar glint of alarm. "Was it too much?"

"Sssh. It was _perfect_." Perfect—and terrifying. No limits. No regrets. No threat that the pleasure would leave her mad, unstable, _monstrous_. She is still whole.

Her smile, reassuring, wobbles. "I'm—surprised. You've been holding out on me."

"Me?" His cooling lips touch her temple. " _You_."

"What?"

He is soft-eyed, stunned. "I have never seen you that way. So absorbed. So _wild_. You lost yourself in it."

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of. Losing myself. What if I—"

"Ssh." He kisses the pulse at her hairline, the dampness of her cheeks. "One lapse is not a regression. Least of all here."

"A lapse can become a habit."

"I hope so." There is adoration in every lineament of his face. "I would not want to forgo that again. Not give you that again."

"Haji..."

"Saya, if you lose control, it will not be here. Pleasure is not degeneration. And control is not existence. You know the difference."

"You say that now—"

"Because I have faith in you." His words thrum through her, a string of pure love. "I hope, someday, you will allow the same for yourself."

She bites her lip. It is overwhelming sometimes, his patience with her. His matter-of-fact acceptance. Every time she thinks she's grasped the extent of it, it opens up to whole new seascapes of devotion.

It is so much more than she deserves.

Tipping her head up, she kisses him again. There is still blood in their mouths, coppery-warm. It reminds her of an old Russian wedding tradition. How the bride and groom kiss after a toast of vodka, to symbolize the shared sweetness of their future.

Or shared suffering?

"I'm sorry, Haji."

"For what?"

"Back there. I-I didn't mean to bite you."

"Ssh. It has already healed."

"Yes. But—" Thinking of the war, the ordeal he'd suffered, during battles and at her hands, shame stirs. "Tearing into your throat... it shouldn't be a part of what we do together. I've hurt you enough."

"Please let me be the judge of that."

"But what if—"

He traces the shape of her mouth with his fingertips. They come away red-smeared. Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifts them to his lips. The quiet intimacy of the gesture shocks her past anything they've just shared.

"It needn't happen again," Haji whispers. "Not unless you wish it. But if it does... It can be whatever we want it to be."

 _Whatever we want._

It carries the same resonance as _Relationship_.

Saya bites her lip around a smile. Her eyes burn; she wants so badly to tell him she loves him. Just blurt it out. Except it's like in a dream where the words are formless, spelled out in a language you cannot speak. She doesn't trust her own fluency, or have enough confidence to make it up as she goes along.

The words that _do_ tumble off her tongue are ghosts of what she truly feels.

"Kiss me again?"

He obeys. A kiss that isn't like snowfall or Syrah, but scorching droughts and thirst. Her whole body throbs achingly: lips and skin and between her thighs. She doesn't care. She wants total contact, the echo of want still resonating through her, his weight a silky blanket, tinged now with welcome coolness.

The kisses he gives her are the same. A cool reverb of sensation, so it feels like the possibility of another time, another her, are just on the tip of her tongue. Like they'll come back to her any minute.

A becoming into the girl she could've been, if the war hadn't broken her to pieces.

"Saya?" Haji's rasp makes her nerves flare. Licks of fire leaping up her spine. "Are you—?"

"Mnm?"

"Are you in the mood for butchering more Chopin?"

Saya can't answer. The tears have cleared, yet something is bubbling from her depths again. Leaping and spangling like music into the air, the _Fantaisie Impromptu_ in reverse.

Laughter.

* * *

 _Jokes aside, the_ Fantaisie Impromptu _is nothing short of a melodious torture box. I'll stick with baby tunes like Scarborough Fair 8'|_

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Review, pretty please! :3_


	22. Potion

_Friday update! c:_

 _Whew. This was a tough chapter to write. Herein begins the more controversial element to the tale, complete with my own theories on Chiropteran evolution and biology. Some are borrowed from Blood#, while others are revamped concepts from the natural order of bats and bees._

 _If y'all want to read a truly original Blood+ fic about Chiropteran mating habits, I highly recommend Tuli Azzameen's_ Where Black Met Gold _trilogy. She also does fun-filled Star Wars stuff, so be sure to check that out too!_

 _As always, I am delighted by all the gorgeous feedback y'all leave me! I hope the latest chapter is up to snuff - as there's a lot happening in terms of info-dumping._

 _Hope you enjoy, and review pretty please!_

* * *

Sunlight drags Saya from the surface of blurred dreams.

The digital numbers on Haji's bedside clock flash 1 PM. Seagulls call over the echo of rolling surf; between the bright shades, the sky shows up in intense stripes of blue. The day holds a breath-held beauty that she wishes she could trap for eternity—pure and perfect.

Absolutely no reason why it should be this way. But why not?

She draws in a languorous breath, stretching a hand out. Encounters only cool linen sheets, not cool skin. The bed is empty except for her. On Haji's side, the covers are thrown back, the pillow undented. Her Chevalier has risen already—likely at the crack of dawn—and left.

Disappointment isn't the right word; she feels off-center. Sitting up, tangled in sheets, she winces at the unaccustomed heaviness of her body. Her thighs are stuck together; she aches all over, hair wild and skin blotched. Souvenirs from a night well-spent.

"Haji?"

It is a rasp. Her voice is raw, as if with too much singing. Or is screaming a better word? Her face burns. She's never been particularly noisy during sex. But the sounds Haji shocked out of her last night were second to war-cries in battle.

After the game with the piano, they'd gone two more lightning-rounds with barely a pause. Her whole body, once roused by his, was a klieg-light that refused to go out. No more springtime shyness or old-fashioned prudery—they had shocked each other with their wildness, all clutching nails and biting teeth. He'd had her sprawled on the staircase, then propped against the window of the sitting room, then finally in his bed. Pushing past her surface, beyond the hard-jolting peaks of pleasure, to the stymied fireball beneath that was terrifying for being so tightly locked away. He'd built her up to it languidly. Slow twists of hips and hot kisses and blue-burning eyes, until her climax was saturated in her skin, boiling beneath her bones—a slow-spilling, sobbing, overheated fugue that lasted for what felt like minutes.

Afterward, between her giddy tears and laughter, he'd held her draped across his body, like a child in an oak tree, nestled between the shady coolness of its branches.

She fell asleep dreaming of the Zoo.

Now, Saya drags herself unsteadily out of bed. On her feet, the hormonal hangover engulfs her—a full-bodied dizziness.

Yet her mood is better than it's been in ages.

Diva's rock, dangling from the end of its chain, is already a familiar weight against her skin. She slips it off carefully. Touches it to her lips, almost a good-luck kiss, before stowing it in her jewelry box.

Twenty minutes later, bathed and dressed, she tiptoes downstairs.

In the kitchen, a tray of home-baked cookies sits alongside a plate heaped with spicy shrimp stirfry. Both are still fragrantly warm. There are also three perfect pink roses on the counter. Smiling, Saya picks them up. A note nestled between the stems, in Haji's sharply-slanting French script, says, _Called away. Will be back soon. Last night was exquisite._

Called away where? she wonders. It isn't like her Chevalier to bolt after intimacy. Not unless it's an emergency. But the flowers and note reassure her.

"Well. He doesn't stick around the Morning After. But at _least_ he cooks breakfast."

Saya whirls.

Nathan Mahler is there. A straw hat covers his curly-wurly blond hair. His body is wrapped in a superbly-cut white silk kimono with carmine skeins of foxgloves patterning its sleeves. The _obi_ is carmine too, decorated with sumptuous ivory needlework. Saya looks closer, and realizes it is embroidered with snakes, jaws open and coils sinuous, a mythical drama leaping to life.

Nathan's face pure drama too. Sharp-sculpted and superciliously smug, the eyes twinkling with a half-jaded, half-juvenile wickedness.

The sight of him spins Saya into a whirlwind of horror.

"How—how did you get in here?!"

"Front door." He gives her a gleeful once-over. "Oh, lookit _you_. All rosy-cheeked and bow-legged. Someone got that _good-good_ last night, hmmm?"

Saya doesn't dignify that with a reply. A dozen scenarios of his decapitation erupt in her mind. It is all she can do not to snatch up the chef's knives and launch herself at him.

An improvement over their last meeting. Back then, two months out of her Awakening, she'd nearly skewered him with Kai's meat cleaver.

She opens her mouth to speak, but is checked by Nathan's wagging finger. "Ah ah. There shall be no _fricassee_ this early in the afternoon."

She grits her teeth. "How. Did you. Get here?"

"I _told_ you. Front. Door." He doffs his hat, flicking off a rose petal on the trim. "Haji gave me a spare key."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because no self-respecting _artiste_ can afford to alienate his manager."

" _M-Manager_?"

Nathan flings a tiny look of pique her way. "He didn't tell you? _Tsk_. How typical. Leave it to a man to lie about three things: money, work, and ex-loves."

 _Ex-loves?_ she thinks. But what comes out is, "Why are you here?"

"To talk shop with Haji. Make plans. Schedule tours. Blah de blah." As he speaks, he pirouettes around the kitchen, opening up cupboards, sniffing at jars, prying into shelves. "There's a huge music expo happening in Vienna. Haji _must_ sign on."

"He's not here right now."

 _So go away_.

Nathan's proximity makes her skin prickle. The high-spirited savoir faire doesn't fool her for one red second. Underneath is a cross between a cursed Pharaoh's sarcophagus and a ticking time-bomb: an energy both ancient and fatal.

She's learnt from Kai that he is no longer on Diva's side. Sayumi and Sayuri—who affectionately call him _Yako-san_ , from the legend of _kitsune_ tricksters—have explained to Saya that he isn't even, strictly speaking, Diva's Chevalier. She doesn't want to believe it. But the fact that Nathan is alive, despite getting sliced apart by her bloody sword, is proof enough. Her blood isn't poisonous to him.

Which compounds her wariness. If he isn't Diva's Chevalier, then where did he come from?

Nathan, cheerfully oblivious, takes a bite of the stirfry. Tears spring to his eyes; he fans a waggling tongue. " _Yeeeowch_! Hot!" From the sink, he gulps down a glass of water. "Who's the sadist who whipped _that_ up?"

"…Um. Haji."

" _Wha-a-a-at_? That white cheddar cheezit _seasons_ his meals?!"

"He's been doing it for years!" She is weirdly offended on Haji's behalf. "He'd put paprika in our _soupe à l'oignon_ at the Zoo."

The cook used to decry his habit as _Gypsy devilry_. But the cook used to say that about condiments in any shape or form. Come to think, Haji's childhood recollections about his grandmother's cooking—spicy goulash, stuffed peppers, rabbit-and-onion stew—make sense as more than nostalgia, but preventing the erasure of an identity that Amshel and Joel had tried to squash, remaking him from an " _atavistic guttersnipe_ " to a gentleman _"much reformed with the aid of a proper French education."_

He'd been their little experiment in _humanizing_ the _sub-human_ as surely as Saya was.

"Paprika in _soupe à l'oignon_?" Nathan guffaws. "I'll be damned. The boy invented fusion-food!"

"Huh?"

He is already on his knees at a little alcove below the counter, where Haji keeps a collection of cookbooks. Most are Kai's: leftovers from culinary school. Others are souvenirs from her Chevalier's travels: Persian recipes and Thai cuisine and easy-to-make American appetizers, the pages bookmarked for certain dishes that have hit the spot for her. A cheat-sheet of Saya-Snackage.

Nathan pulls out an untouched-looking volume from the bookcase. _Love At First Bite: The Complete Vampire Cookbook_. He settles crosslegged on the tiles and opens it in his lap, curls swinging down over his eyes.

Then—"Beef or pork?"

"What?"

"For sausages. That stirfry will _barely_ tide you over. I should whip you up a proper meal—oozing blood and protein. C'mon. What're you in the mood for? Blodplättar? Svartsoppa? Blutwurst?"

"I—I don't—" Why is he offering to cook for her? Already, she is sour-faced at her daily dose of imperfect perfection—sunshine, stirfry, solitude—ruined by Nathan's jangling presence. "I'm _fine_. Haji's not here. Why don't you go away?"

"And miss out on quality-time _with you-hoo-hoo_?" He gapes in mock-affront. "Please. My real pilgrimage was to see the Queen. Frighten the little snake under her gown and what-not."

"What?"

He ignores her, holding the book aloft. "I left Haji this so he'd make you nourishing _treats_. Not scorch your bunghole off! What's the boy's obsession with hot peppers, anyway? I wouldn't be surprised if his spooge tastes like _jalapeños_."

" _Excuse me_?"

He's already swung to his feet, a balletic movement worthy of a double cabriole. Opening the refrigerator, he speaks into the wafts of cool air. "Hmmm-Hmm. Let's take a looksie. Leftover takeout. Cold pizza. Parsnips-turned-penicillin. _Goodness_! Your cup runneth over! Is there at least any _blood_?"

"Would you _stop_ that!?"

His poking and prying are unutterably unnerving. The entire kitchen, its familiar scents stirring a rich olio of intimacies with Haji—laughter and kisses, confidences and arguments—is made disconcerting by his presence.

She's begun thinking of the villa as exclusively _theirs_.

"Ooh. _Snippy_." Nathan closes the fridge. "I'm just saying. Any Chevalier worth his salt ought to keep a well-stocked larder for his Queen. That pretty creamsicle of his may fill up your cooch just fine. But he can't fill your belly the same way. Not with yummies. Or babies." A sly pause. " _Yet_."

"W-What?"

Nathan dances around the counter as if he hasn't heard her. From the fruit basket, he hefts for inspection a pineapple big as a baby's head. "Hmmm. This will do." He strokes its spiky surface in mock-adoration. "It's so rare... so costly... so luxurious..."

Saya blinks. "The pineapple?"

"Oh ye-e-e-es." He trills it like a birdsong. " _If you brought me diamonds/If you brought me pearls/If you brought me roses..."_ Glide, slide, glissade. _"Like some other gents/Might bring to other girls_." All crooning vocal-fry and ballet-twirls. " _It couldn't please me more/Than the gift I seeeeeeee_." Tour en l'air! " _A pineeeeeeeeeeeaaaapple for me_!"

Saya grits her teeth. " _Stop_ that!" God, it's like dealing with a rambunctious toddler. "What were you saying before? About—?"

"Babies?" He bats his eyelashes coyly. "Why? Are you interested in rugrats?"

"I never said—"

"But you're curious, right? Well. I can't blame you." He sighs. "In the days of yore, you'd have mothers and grandmothers imparting such wisdom. There would be ceremonies to mark your first bleeding. Your initiation into the mysteries of sex. The elaborate rituals of the first battle, the first kill, the first kiss..."

His voice is melty marmalade with memory. Saya doesn't trust it.

"You say that like you were there," she scoffs.

"Oh, but I _was_."

"You expect me to believe—"

"You've heard stranger things in your past, darling. And you'll hear stranger in your future." His smile takes a darker dimension. "You're aware, thanks to Joel's diary, that you came from a mummy named _Saya_. Did you never wonder who she _was_?"

"I had other things to worry abou—"

"I _know_. That silly war between you and Diva." He blows a raspberry. "It's over now, thank Hamingja above and the Dís below. It's spared neither hide nor hair of your sister—but _you_ are still here. Don't you think it's time to get in touch with your roots?"

 _Roots?_ On reflex, Saya lifts a hand to her hairline.

Nathan groans. "Not those roots. _Jeez_." He plunks the pineapple on the counter. "Forget it. Pass me a knife."

"I told you Haji isn't—"

"I _heard_." He gestures impatiently. "Take a seat. We'll do schmooze-and-smoothies while we wait."

"I don't _want_ smoothies—"

"But you'll drink 'em anyway. And _like_ it."

"I'm not—"

Her stomach rumbles like a referee settling a match.

Nathan tweaks a brow. "You were saying?"

Sulky, Saya climbs onto a stool. The stirfry and cookies are cool by now. But after last night's exertions, she is intensely hungry. Cramming forkfuls of shrimp into her mouth, munching on cookie after cookie, she watches Nathan whirl around the kitchen tiles with a cutting knife, all Broadway pizzazz with a sinister side-order of Hitchcock.

He carves up the pineapple. Nothing like the way Haji does it: a self-taught precision from the Iron Chef and Youtube tutorials, the recipe book laid open like a battle strategy and utensils assembled like a small armory. Nathan wields the blade carelessly, as if he'd worked in the kitchens of noisy households and high-end restaurants alike.

Chopping neatly, he says, "This is a nice place you've got. Private. A bit pricey with the _ad velorem_ property tax. But hey! The Goldschmidt chingching gives you deep pockets. It's a good place for it to happen."

"For what to happen?"

He doesn't answer. From the fridge, he gets out a carton of yogurt. Scoops a daub off the top with his fingertip, and licks it. "Mmm. Lo-fat vanilla." Snickering, "Just like Haji, hm?"

Blushing, Saya drops her gaze. Where _is_ Haji? Maybe she should text him?

In the blender, Nathan dumps in the diced pineapples, one banana, ice cubes and the entire container of yogurt. When the machine has whirred the mixture into a creamy yellow smoothness, he pours it into a tall glass. "Say _razzmatazz-riddle-me-reeeee_."

"Um," Saya says, right before the glass overflows.

The sounds of nurture only underscore the strangeness of the scene. She finds herself eyeing Nathan the way Alice might size up the Mad Hatter, wondering if the tea is spiked or simply poisoned.

"Go on," Nathan prods. "It's good for you. Diva liked hers with a sprinkle of cinnamon."

Her sister's name goes through her in an irregular pulse of sickness. "Diva liked _human_ food?"

"Liked? _No_. Had to eat it. _Yes_." Nathan scrapes out the remnants of the smoothie in a glass for himself. "Your sister's relationship with blood wasn't unlike a frat boy on a binge. _Chug chug chug_. It had less to do with instinct than her days in the tower. She was half-starved most of the time. Meager portions, and little blood to boot. She grew to crave what her body didn't get."

The sickness becomes a stomach-ache of the whole body. "So you're implying... what? That Chiropterans don't live on blood alone?"

"Not the _Queens_." He flips his hair out of his eyes. "As a rule, Chevaliers have no need for human sustenance. Our bodies are self-sustaining. But it's different for a Queen. In order to nourish embryos, she needs different nutrients." He points to the cookbook. "In the old days, Queens mixed blood with grain and meat. Enjoying the fruit of human labor—while absorbing blood for its boost to their immune systems."

"Immune systems?"

" _Of course_! For most animals, blood is _terribly_ difficult to metabolize. Half water, half protein, with little in the way of vitamins. Also: _crawling_ with pathogens. But Chiropterans, miracles that we are, have evolved to _require_ it. Blood keeps the microbes in our guts nigh-invulnerable to the deadliest toxin. It also enables our interferon response—genes that switch on to deal with infections. It's why we heal so quickly. Blood, more than a meal, is our _medicine_."

Saya squints suspiciously. "Medicine?"

"Mmm-hmm. With different sources having different benefits." He ticks them off his fingers. "A Chevalier's blood acts as a stimulant for a Queen. It awakens her memories after her hibernation. Or it serves as a stabilizer. Calming her in times of distress. But by far the most beneficial blood is _human_."

Saya's eyes narrow. "As a snack?"

"No, darling. As a _sanative_." Warming to the subject, Nathan perches on the stool. "Our relationship with humans seems predatory at first glance. But it's closer to symbiotic. We need them. And, once upon a time, _they_ needed _us_."

Saya stares at him. Dust-motes float in the clean sunlight, the kitchen taking on a diffuse brightness. But Nathan seems a blur at the edges. Maddingly opaque. Why should she trust a word out of his mouth?

Yet doubt cannot eclipse her curiosity. "…What do you mean?"

Nathan rests his chin on a palm. Nostalgia oozes through his words like a fairytale drizzled over the dry crust of a history-lesson. "No one knows who came first. Humans. Chiropterans. Yet we have coexisted—grudgingly—since the spoken word itself. In the early days, we survived by attacking the livestock in human villages. Pigs, sheep, cattle. Soon, we graduated to _bipedal_ prey. But tasty as human flesh was, their blood proved more _useful_. It healed us. Kept us strong. So we chose humans as our primary food-source. And trained them to fulfill the role with _gusto_."

"What?"

A _tch_. "You really don't know _anything_ , do you?" Without waiting for an answer, he snags a cookie from the tray. "Are these Brown-Butter-Bourbon? _Ooh_! My favorite!" He chews with openmouthed ostentation. " _Mm-mm_. This is _definitely_ Sayumi and Sayuri's recipe. Bless them. Hearts of harlots, but by _god_ , they bake like the unholy love-children of Sarah Lee and Betty Crocker combined." He bites into another cookie, scattering crumbs down his shirtfront. "Now where were we?"

"Brown-Butter-Bourbon?"

"Before that."

"Food sources?"

"Before that."

Saya barely refrains from rolling her eyes. " _Blood_?"

" _Yes_! As I was saying. Blood has kept Chiropterans and humans bound to one another for _eons_." He dusts the crumbs off his shirt. "Mind you, it wasn't always that way. Our ancestors began very different from you and I. Massive. Monstrous. Roaming the cold wastelands, they fed on man and beast alike. Looking back at our _gudelære_ —our god lore—I'd argue they were inspiration for many human myths. The Greek Titans. The Norse Jötnar." He sighs, "Alas, once the Ice Age ended, they had to _adapt_. Most creatures—take, for instance, the _homo sapiens sapiens_ —were pretty straightforward about the process. They made an honest living through sheer numbers, and tools. Chiropterans? We chose _stealth_."

"Stealth?"

Nathan fans a hand up and down before his face. With each sweep, the tiny muscles in his features rearrange themselves. A study of cherubic softness one moment, a fiasco of wrinkles and cicatrices the next. Old. Young. Pretty. Ugly.

Saya is uneasily transfixed. Her vision reels in and out, seeing the ordinary skin of a human being—and the unnatural elongation of muscles beneath.

The monster hidden beneath the surface.

"Most animals learn to mimic others for protection," Nathan says, his features resuming their familiar shape. "It's different for Chiropterans. We took on human skin to stay within striking distance of our prey. _Hide in plain sight._ It's why we evolved special nerves to sense body-heat in our prey's veins. Wings to sweep them away to our lairs. Sharp teeth to make incisions without tearing major arteries." He chuckles. "Honestly, the evolutionary copycatting is _impeccable_. Not only did we adapt to look like humans. We even came to _fuck_ like them. It's easy to swap a human woman with a Chiropteran Queen in the dark. The only thing that gives her away is that she wakes up next to six feet of _morning wood_."

Saya drops her gaze. The vividness of last night with Haji threatens to leech her attention from the moment.

Nathan drums his fingernails against his glass of smoothie, a series of playful plinks. "Queens mimic human women in other respects too. Yearly menstruation. Colostrum from the breasts when nursing. A fatal susceptibility to Hansen's _MMMBop_." She blinks, and he sticks out his tongue. " _Kidding_. Anyway, these traits were intended to let Queens mingle incognito in human habitats. Pick Chevaliers from among them, leaving the rest none the wiser."

He tips her a crooked smile. "They _did_ get wise, though. Queens may look human. But their gifts are anything _but_."

"Gifts?"

"I don't mean the speed and strength. Your foremothers had greater powers still. _Seiðr_ , we called it. Sorcery is the closest translation—but it was so much more. They could terrify the fiercest animal with the faintest footfall. They could divine a man's past or future with a sip of his blood. A wave of their hands, and flowers bloomed, or withered away."

Saya thinks of the blue roses sprung up around the villa. Cold knowledge and deeper icing of fear seep through her bones.

"Naturally," Nathan says, "such gifts awed the humans. The Queen could literally giveth life, or taketh away. In exchange for her boons, humans offered payent. Shiny jewels, shinier boys. Before long, they worshiped Queens as goddesses. _Blodfødt_ , they called them. Born of blood. Since they existed in pairs, each Queen had a role. Blue Queens were seen as the bright, electrifying energy of birth. Of life and fertility. The womb. Conversely, the Red Queen was seen as the dark, primordial pull of death. War. Chaos. The tomb. Two sides of the same coin. Upon this dualism, the first cultural system arose. And with it, the incipient seeds of altruistic suicide and human sacrifice."

" _Suicide_?" asks Saya in alarm. " _Sacrifice_?"

Nathan sighs, dream-drunk on memory. " _Aaah._ I remember those days well. The Queens' court was Valhalla itself. To be accepted as their Chevalier was honor unparalleled. Red Queens chose their lovers for their prowess with swords. The Blue ones favored a lively manner, and enough charm to knock the stars down from the sky. During the fall equinox, both Queens met with their chosen Chevaliers at _Bøsdalafossur_ —a waterfall that dropped straight into the sea. Here, they would mate with their sisters' Chevaliers, hanging upside down from the cave walls, enfolded in each other's wings." White teeth sharpen themselves in a smirk. "You should try it with Haji sometime."

She colors up violently, but he pays no mind. "Now where were we? Oh right! Once the Queens fell pregnant, they congregated to maternity colonies. Fantastic fortresses where they stayed sequestered, until the Princesses were born." His glinty eyes meet hers. "Had _you_ lived then, my sweet, you'd have not one mother to teach you, but _two_. Each one imparting special gifts, and the secrets of swords and songs. Each one grooming you into a _goddess_ in your own right."

Saya shakes her head. She was ready to believe the brutal expedience of Chiropteran evolution. But this is just too over-the-top to swallow.

"If we're such _goddesses_ ," she says, "then where did all the Queens go?"

Nathan's eyes, flickering down, go almost black. "The answer is simple: _Mankind_. They began as our prey. But as their numbers expanded, _we_ became _theirs_. Humans breed more prolifically than us. Soon they'd gone from outnumbering us fifty-to-one to a _thousand_ -to-one. At which point they began to wonder if they needed us at all. Ere long, wars erupted across the land. Chiropterans were hunted and slaughtered. We experienced severe habitat loss, starvation, shrinking gene pools. A _bona fide_ biotic crisis." His lip curls. "Of course, the humans had _help_ pulling it off."

"Help?"

"A miserable story, darling. To be told at a miserabler time." He takes a pensive sip of his smoothie, "In those days— _these days_ —no one could have predicted it'd come to this. An entire empire brought down. An entire people erased. Certainly, your mother never saw it coming. She foretold all else about her daughters' futures... except how they would _live_ them."

Silence falls, like the aftermath of a broken prophecy. Saya frowns. She's sure Nathan is just spinning yarns. Yet her skull throbs with after-echoes of the conversation with the _yuta_.

"My mother," she whispers. "Who was she?"

Nathan smooths a palm across her hair. The touch releases a sweetish cologney whiff from his body. She inhales it with unease, feeling something stir in her mind, an unfixed memory like a recurring nightmare...

"Your mother—may her name adorn the stars—was a Blue Queen. A high priestess. She had a gift for herbs and prophecy, and a voice like syrup poured in spring." His gaze dulls. "She would weep to see her daughters now. One dead, the other alone. She gave up her own life for yours. For what purpose, I never fathomed. After all, you weren't conceived by love, but by force."

Saya's heartbeat falters. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"Oh, darling." He sags a little. "Must I spell it out for you? Your father was an oathbreaker. Your mother had many Chevalier to serve her—myself happily among them. But your father had no interest in serving. He imprisoned your mother in a fortress by the sea. There, she was starved, and tortured, and raped. By him, and his brothers—may Hekla take them howling. You and Diva were the product of such a union. And yet... your mother protected you. _Keep them safe_. Such was her dying wish." He sighs. "Lo and behold, you've undone eons' worth of her ancient magic. Killed your sister as easy as breathing."

The words shake loose the clench of confusion in Saya's chest. Before she can stop herself, she slaps him across the face.

" _Ow_!" Nathan reels back, a hand to his cheek. "What was that for?"

Saya rises to her feet. Her voice shakes with stoppered rage. "Easy? You think it was _easy_?"

"I do." The energy in Nathan's eyes is bright-dark and blistering. Not a time-bomb but a massing typhoon. "It must've been, for you to accomplish what is anathema between two Sister-Queens. But that's not your fault. Then, as now, it's the work of corrupt men." He laughs, and the energy dissipates. "Fear not. So long as I breathe, I'll see to it that you live. It's too late for Diva. But she made her bed."

Saya shakes her head. Like atrophied muscles forced into motion, the words cramp in her throat.

"Amshel," she whispers. " _He_ made her bed. Diva never had a choice."

"No, she didn't," Nathan says. "But _you_ do. So what do you plan to spend it on?"

Saya frowns. "On the people I love."

"Looooove?!" He rears away, a _sur la pointe_ of scorn. " _Lungi da me satana_!"

"What?"

"Ugh. Ugh. _Ugh_." He waves his hands, as if dispelling the word from the air like a fart. "Darling. Sweetheart. _Ma fille magnifique_. Take it from someone who's been around the block a time or ten-thousand. Forget love. What you need is _loyalty_. That way _you_ make the rules, and can open and close the doors of yourself as you see fit. Always good for a Queen to know her borders." His fingers make a sharp slice in the air, describing a gap, or a guillotine. "And if someone crosses them— _wssssht_. That's the end of it. The label is forever—and so is their fate. Traitors are executed. Blasphemers burned at the stake. That's as it should be. Whereas love? _Pffff_. Love traps you, not the other way around."

"Trap…?"

He bristles. "Just look around you! How many girls trap boys in the soft manacles of their bodies for love, only to have the boys turn around and trap them with a ring on their fingers and empty words on their lips? Love is frivolity, darling. You are a _Queen_. Indulge in it as you do on a tray of bonbons. But don't let it rule your life. Don't let it rule _you_. Aim for greater heights."

Saya tries to shake off the dizzying _Huh?_ at his tirade. "Like what?"

"Whatever you're hungry for. Whatever satisfies you."

He says _Satisfies_. What she hears is _Steadies_. Steady, steady as a ship, and ships sail wherever they are steered. Except where is she steering herself, without Diva to serve as the figurehead on the prow, the purpose for her life's journey?

Each time she contemplates the alternatives—travel, music, food, sex—they show up strangely one-dimensional.

"What if…nothing makes me hungry? Or satisfies me?"

Nathan lets off a trill of laughter. "Oh, _come_ now! The whole world, since it began, is all gnawing hungers given different form. That is all that keeps it spinning."

"That can't be all. There must be… more?"

"More? _Hmmm_. What is solace, I wonder, for the girl who knows neither hunger nor satisfaction? _Ooh_ , I know!" He whirls exuberantly in his stool. "In creation, perhaps? In beauty and in rebuilding broken things. In legacy."

"Aren't Chiropterans a legacy in themselves?"

"We are. But there are different kinds of immortality. One is to make of _oneself_ a tribute to forever. And the other... the other is _heirs_. Little links in the chain that runs parallel to the flow of time itself."

"I can't have childre—"

He guffaws, "Who told you _that_?"

Her heart skips with a terror verging on vertigo. "But Diva's Chevaliers are all dead. The only way I—a Quee—the only way Diva conceived—"

"Is with _your_ Chevalier. Your little Riku." His smile is a _tour-de-force_ of calculated charm. "As a rule, a Queen has up to three sets of twins in her lifetime. Each pair from her sister's Chevalier. But if that's impossible, she may get up to three from her _own_ Chevalier." A beat. "Yours is _Haji_."

The vertigo kicks up a breathless lurch. The cookies and stirfry threaten to come spewing up.

"That can't be right," she croaks. "Dr. Julia and Ezra studied Chiropterans. They said... there's certain genetic material in the sister's Chevalier that triggers conception. A D-factor and S-factor. Without that, Queens don't store the sperm—"

" _Pbbbbt_." Nathan waves a hand. "Red Shield knows even less than Amshel. And what he knew was the barest tip of the microscopic millimeter of the iceberg."

"Wh-what are you saying?"

Nathan finishes off his smoothie. A creamy mustache streaks his upper-lip. He licks it off with feline relish.

"Listen, darling. I'll tell you as I told Diva. You are a _Queen_. Without armies. Without vassals. But a Queen nonetheless. You must consolidate your place. And above all, _protect_ yourself. With smarts. With savagery. With shields. That's what daughters for each Queen boil down to."

"How can daughters _protect_ me?" Saya snaps. "Pregnancy neutralizes our blood! It's the only reason I managed to kill _Diva_!"

He rolls his eyes. " _Annnnd_? You think that's forever? Foolish girl. If every Queen's blood lost potency after childbirth, our species would've died before the Great Flood."

"You're saying—?"

"It's not a _permanent_ state. Only until she stops nursing. Pregnancy is extremely hard on a Queen's body. All her power is transposed into her offspring. But she grows strong again. _Stronger_ —because for the next thirty years, she will not succumb to her Long Sleep."

Disbelief, the inversion of hope, clings to Saya's skin. She sinks heavily into her stool. "The Long Sleep..."

"A vital time for a Queen. It evolved as an adaptation to the cold winters in the Ice Age. Which, FYI, lasted _decades_. In those days, with blood as scarce as sunshine, Queens would hibernate. Living off fat reserves in their bodies, from the safety of their cocoons." He pulls a face. "In my day, to awaken a Queen during her Long Sleep was forbidden. She'd become disoriented, and deadly. As _you_ well know."

Saya can't meet his eyes. Deep inside, a lattice of ice spreads everywhere. A nightmare vision of Vietnam, the fire and screams, the bright swipes of her sword, the dark gouts of blood.

Her fingers tremble around her glass.

"Of course, childbearing doesn't _end_ the long sleep," Nathan says. "It merely _delays_ it. Much in the same way pregnancy for human women delays _menopause_." Nathan shrugs. "Thirty years is plenty for a Queen to raise her daughters. To protect them, so they can protect the Queendom in her absence. Among the Blodfødt, princesses were charged with defending the territories. Currying favor and forming coalitions with other Queens."

Saya's fingers are numb against the glass. The rest of her is numb too—not with dread, but its opposite.

"These princesses?" she says. "You said a Queen can make them with her own Chevalier?"

"In a fashion."

"What fashion?"

"Natural versus artificial selection." He chucks her under the chin. "How old are you, under that baby-faced viz? Two-hundred, give or take?"

Saya jerks away. "What's that got to with it?"

"Well, the oven's still gotta _function_ before you stick a bun in." He pops another cookie into his mouth. "As I recall, a Queen's menarche begins when she is sixteen. Around this time, she ceases aging, and begins to demonstrate accelerated healing. Her blood also develops the capacity to create Chevaliers. A couple decades after her first is sired, she subsides into Long Sleep. This owes to chemicals in her bloodstream, signaling that she has a protector for her cocoon." A contemplative _crunch_. "As far as the twins go, Yumi's still got time. Her beefcakey boytoy is barely four years old. But Yuri will start approaching her Long Sleep soon. She turned Sachi eight years ago, as I recall."

Saya's throat burns, and her eyes go blurry. Yumi and Yuri… their time with her is still so brand-new. She hadn't considered how their own hibernations might end it even before the novelty wears off.

"The Long Sleep," she whispers. "Is there any way to stop it completely?"

" _Nope_." Nathan's cheerful matter-of-factness verges on brutality. "Without it, _you dead_."

" _Dead_?"

"Ever seen someone with cryptococcal meningitis? Think that, times a _hundred_. The lining around your brain will not just become inflamed. It will _erode_. You'd end up a living vegetable—and finally a compost heap." He idles over his polished fingernails. "Queens _need_ to hibernate, darling. Same way humans need sleep. In our day, we called it _Mors Søvn._ Mother's Sleep. The idea was that she took all her Chevalier's sleepless hours upon herself. Only motherhood—the birth of little princesses—could break the curse. If _briefly_."

A suffocating silence settles in Saya's chest. She barely hears when Nathan goes on, "Given how long-lived Queens are, their window for conception is astonishingly brief. It begins at age sixteen, then narrows toward their one-seventieth year. For you, this would've been… what? Back in 2006?" When Saya doesn't answer, he continues, "It's during this period that a Queen is likeliest to conceive. Afterward yields less luck. It's why Diva was so _desperate_ to get pregnant those last years. In her bones, she knew next Awakening would make it harder. So she took her chance when she had it."

 _Took her chance._

Saya thinks of Riku's body in the anemic light of Red Shield's ship, pale and helpless as an excised eyeball. Thinks of Diva's hands smoothing along her belly, eyes lit with a sly glow that made Saya want to break her bones, and then Diva looking up, her face frozen around a shocky blankness in the bright stage lights at the Met, Saya's sword driven through her belly, her joy coming undone as her body fell apart, beyond grief, beyond pain, and she reached a hand for the cocoons, a dark stain on her dark gown and hairline fissures spreading on her fingertips...

 _Goodbye, my little ones._

Misery makes her heart twist and want to bite itself. It's an effort to speak. "…So what are you saying?"

"I'm _saying_ you've got until your Long Sleep. Maybe the next Awakening. Maybe not." He flutters his lashes. "We may stay flawless on the surface. But that clock's tick-tick- _tickin_.' And your time's nearly up."

"My time?"

"To have daughters, you dope!" He pouts. "Pity none of Diva's Chevaliers survived. Solomon would've knocked you up _lickety-split_."

Saya winces. Even now, the memory of Solomon is a current on her skin, a secret sparkage of sweetness. It catches her off-guard, because she seldom dwells on him. She hadn't loved him. She'd relied on his devotion in the end. She'd grieved for him afterwards, the same way she'd grieved for the others lost to the war. But the mourning was eclipsed by Haji's loss.

Without her Chevalier's shield of steadiness, her entire world went off-center.

"Solomon is gone," she whispers. "It's _Haji_ I'm talking about."

"So it is." His eyes glint, sly and shadowed in a way she doesn't understand—and certainly doesn't trust. "By the by. Did you know that in noble houses, a sister's Chevalier wasn't the _only_ candidate for babymaking?"

"What?"

"It's true. Daughters of one Queen as far down as three generations might share the opposite Queen's Chevaliers, or vice versa. Not their _father_ , mind you. That was a great taboo. But they could mate with their aunt's other Chevaliers—technically their _uncles_ —and deliver perfectly healthy babies."

Saya is horrified. "You're saying Haji could—?"

"With Sayumi and Sayuri? _Sure_. Not that it'll happen. They see Haji as a Pseudo-Papa, so the suggestion would _appall_ them." He slinks out a ghastly giggle. "I did mention it to Haji. Once. The boy went from lily-white to thundercloud black. Then he dragged me outside and dunked me facedown in the sea until…"

"Until?"

"Until I swallowed fifty different kinds of shellfish! _Duh_." He sniffs. " _You_ try apologizing with seawater in your lungs, missy!"

Her lungs are already congealed—but with liquid dread.

"What about me?" she whispers, "You said Haji and I—?"

" _In a fashion._ Typically, Queens mated with their sister's or aunt's Chevaliers because conception was surefire. A genetic incentive for rivals to stay friendly. But sometimes …one Queen perished. Or all her Chevaliers died in wars. In such moments, the surviving Queen had only her own Chevaliers to fall back on."

"And did they get pregnant?"

There is no mistaking the sneaky schadenfreude in Nathan's smile. "What's the magic woooord?"

" _Tell me_!"

"All right. All right. _Jeez_." He makes a show of cleaning his ear. "As a rule, to avoid the inbreeding depression—that's when a population of yokels fuck themselves into _Hapsburg Dynasty_ levels of disaster—a Queen's body rejects the seed of her own Chevalier. It wasn't always that way. Biology made it so. But it can also _un_ make it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, a Queen's body is a marvel of nature." He taps a finger against his nose. "Our kind communicate primarily through pheromones. These act as body-altering agents. The most powerful are the _Queen's_. Each exudes her own signature scent, like a fancy perfume. These serve as chemical cues for control and cohesion among colonies. Summoning Chevaliers, signaling danger, safeguarding fertility."

"Fertility?"

" _Of course_. Between sister-Queens, their pheromones synchronize everything. Hibernations, menses, ovulation. The timing needn't be identical. Anything between a day to a year's difference. What matters is that these chemicals flow uninterrupted between them. It keeps their ovaries functional. Allows one sister's Chevalier to impregnate the other, and vice versa. It's why two Queens always gravitate to each other." He winks. "You'll notice that Diva was always lured to you, or you to her. At the Zoo. In Russia. In Vietnam. In France. It's the call of blood. The two must stay together, in life as in death."

Saya's pulse skitters up the side of her neck. She feels queasy and light-headed. "What if—one Queen dies?"

Nathan's expression seesaws between smugness and secrecy. The smugness wins out. "After one Queen kicks it, her pheromones die with her. In her absence, the surviving Queen's body begins—how shall I put it? _Overcompensating_." He lays a hand on her forehead. "Any dizzy spells lately? Increased appetite? High libido? Blue roses blossoming out the wazoo?"

Saya swats his hand off. "How are blue roses relevant?"

"Ex _cuse_ you!" The sunlight throws a glittery halo around his head, transforming him into a patron saint of petulance. "Blue roses are how a Queen telegraphs _availability_. Why d'you think they always appeared around Diva?"

"I thought—"

"What? It was for _The Aesthetic_?" He snorts. "I guess decades of stress precluded them growing around _you_. But that's _entirely_ your fault. Off on crazy vendettas like some pint-sized Iniga Montoya…"

Saya ignores the jibe. "So why have the blue roses appeared now?"

"A sign of _Superovulation_. With Diva gone, your body is revving up for conception. With _any_ Chevalier handy. Even Haji."

A chill goes down Saya's spine; her mouth tastes of bile. Lifting her smoothie, she drains it in one swallow to get the taste out. The afterflavor clinging to her mind is harder to erase.

Because if Nathan is telling the truth…

"Of course, there's no _guarantee_ you'll bear viable offspring," he goes on. "All that eons of biological determinism doesn't undo itself in one snap. That's why Queens in the olden days took extra precautions. Raising the odds to _fifty/fifty_. After their sister's demise, they took a tincture. A potion to keep the seed safely in the womb."

"A _potion_?" Saya surfaces from her daze, and scowls. "You expect me to believe—"

" _Fifty-fifty,_ I said. By no means a guarantee." Nathan shoulders back in his seat with a carelessness that is calculated to provoke. "Don't pretend you're not interested. You're clutching that glass so tight it'll _explode_."

Saya stares. Her glass is cobweb-cracked. Chagrined, she lets go.

"This tincture," Nathan says, "isn't some old-fangled fertility drug. Its ingredients are rare as black pearls. And in high doses? _Toxic_. Queens only took a thimbleful. Safely diluted. Anything else chances death or illness."

"And you _conveniently_ have this tincture?"

"I do." Under her skeptical look, he beams with bright-eyed brazenness. "I'll only share if you're interested. The question is, _are_ you?"

"I—"

Saya's larynx is a tightrope, the words wobbling for balance as they crawl across it.

 _Yes. No._

There is too much information to digest at once. And she isn't sure if she believes Nathan. _Lying liar who lies_ , isn't that what Kai calls him?

Yet images pop and burst in her mind like bubbles. Sunlight pouring from the crumbling spaces of Diva's crenelated tower, pale slats of it falling on ancient stone and clusters of blue roses. Bright fingerlings of flame and bullets stitching a zigzag path across blood-splattered elephant grass. Saya charging through the mud and spume of a battlefield in Vietnam, sword upraised. Sayumi and Sayuri in the rubble of the Met, rain falling in rivulets down their faces, wet pink anemones of mouths open in laughter. And the girls as adults, dancing at the shoreline, the salty bite of late-night seaside strong in the air. Haji's cool fingers twining through Saya's as she plays the piano, his cool lips sealing like a pledge to her own.

Snippets in time: could-haves, should-haves, might-haves.

She whispers. "I—"

From inside the villa, the alarm sounds off. _Front door._ She hears the tread of measured footsteps, followed by Haji's quiet voice. "Saya? Are you awake?"

Nathan's teeth bare themselves in predatory points. "Well, darling? _Are_ you?"

She glances down. In a magician's sleight of hand, a corked vial has appeared in his hand. Inside, the liquid is pale purple. Cloudy with shimmering particles.

A catastrophe in a bottle?

Or a cure?

* * *

 _Ho don't do it—_

 _Oh muh gawd..._

 _The plot kicks into high gear next chapter. Expect angst, action and Tórir making his move._

 _Hope y'all enjoyed! Your feedback is the lifeline of this tale, so if there's areas you wish I'd improved/addressed in detail, don't hesitate to let me know! Review, pretty please :)_


	23. Cipher

_Happy Monday, guys!_

 _The plot goes haywire at this point- with angst-trains colliding left and right. Nonetheless, I hope it's enjoyable angst. Or at least semi-entertaining. CW for violence and gore toward the end, as Saya ends up in a combat situation with Tórir. Also getting into the meat of the discrepancies in hers and Haji's relationship, which will begin highlighting themselves in a big way from hereon out. Melodrama and misery ahoy!_

 _As always, I am thrilled and gratified by the feedback y'all continue to leave for this tale. Your suggestions mean a lot to me, and keep me motivated to finish this monstrosity, so if there's certain areas you wish I'd focus on more, please let me know!_

 _Now on with the fic. Review, pretty please!_

* * *

It takes an hour to pry Nathan away from Haji and shove him out.

Thrumming with restless energies, Saya wanders the villa. The Chevaliers' voices filter through the music room: Nathan's singysongy nonchalance rolling off the flat surface of Haji's quieter tones.

Listening in, she learns more about Haji's time with the _Philharmonic_ than she'd ever gotten from the twins. The whirlwind tours. The contracts. The security details. The ever-fluctuating schedules. Nathan's words flow loose as always; he barely shuts up. Haji, answering more sparingly, keeps his demeanor at its most unreadable, yet the carefully-cultivated distance doesn't appear to be dislike. More a weary tolerance.

 _He's comfortable around Nathan,_ Saya realizes.

 _Why?_

Why, indeed. The vial—Nathan's tincture—sits in the pocket of her dress. Such a tiny thing. Yet it feels charged with portent. _Drink me,_ it urges, like the potion in Alice in Wonderland.

And like Alice, each time Saya thinks about it, she trips down a rabbit hole of bafflement. Her conversation with Nathan replays through her brain, hope and disbelief blooming like white roses painted with red, then white, then red again, a febrile garden that overcrowds her skull.

 _Thirty years with no Long Sleep._

 _Daughters of my own._

 _Mine and Haji's._

She can't make herself believe it. She is _afraid_ to believe it. Yet every insecurity, every argument, every longing, funnels down her brainpain and straight into her womb. Sweat pops on her hairline.

God—what is she thinking? It's _insane_. Nathan has told her, in the plainest language, about the brutality surrounding her own birth. How dare she perpetuate such a bloodline? Who should she _want_ to? She's never once envisioned herself as a mother. Or had any opinion on children beyond _Aw cute_ or _Ew noisy_.

Why would she? Children represent a future, hope, _life_.

Whereas Saya, years ago, has resigned herself to death.

 _But you're alive, sister,_ Diva says.

Saya winces. Dusty sunlight falls into the villa's windows. For a moment, clear as the floating motes in the air, she sees Diva reaching toward two cocoons.

 _Goodbye…_

Blinking, Saya dispels the vision. A grief closer to anguish seizes her, and then an acidic tide of rage, and fear and guilt and confusion and oh God, what is she going to do? The vial grows heavier with each second.

Gritting her teeth, she goes to Haji's antique Victrola. Slides in a record—Mendelssohn's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ —and cranks up the volume dial. The blatting music cuts into Haji and Nathan's conversation. They glance at her through the music room, Nathan fizzing with amusement, Haji's own irony a muted twitch of lips.

Saya meets their gazes and smiles sweetly. "Goodbye Nathan."

" _We-e-e-ell_ ," Nathan drawls. "I guess I'll see myself out."

"I guess you will."

"Keep my advice in mind, loveling." He winks slyly. "Tick-tock, tick-tock."

Saya flinches but doesn't waver. "We'll see about that."

He smirks, then performs a deep obeisance: bending at the waist, a palm across the chest. It gives Saya a strange shock of déjà vu. Tórir did nearly the same thing yesterday at the marketplace.

"My Queen," he says.

"…Go away now."

Once he's exited the villa, the tension in the air disperses. Sighing, Saya turns off the Victrola. Haji, a column of dark stillness at the doorframe, meets her eyes with a sedate veneer but a glint of humor in his eyes. "Perhaps, next time, I should do the same."

"Play the Victrola?"

"Or cymbals. Nathan rarely takes a hint—unless it is loud enough."

"Then why make him your manager?"

"Expedience." Somber. "And I owe him a debt."

"Huh?"

Haji's gaze shades. "After the Option D bombing at the Met… it was Nathan who dug me out of the rubble. He pieced me back together."

Shock twists in Saya's gut. " _He_ did?"

"Yes. For whatever reason."

 _Maybe he was saving you for me,_ Saya thinks—and nearly flushes at the double-meaning. Quietly, she asks, "Were you scared?"

"During the bombing?"

"Being at his mercy?"

Briefly but perceptibly, she can see Haji weighing his habitual honesty against a strict degree of self-censorship.

"Yes," he admits at last. "I was not in a position to defend myself. Much less move. But I knew you had made it out, and that gave me… not peace, exactly. But fortitude. I was determined to endure that wait—and any of Nathan's machinations."

Saya's throat tightens. Whenever he speaks about her, so simply and trustingly, as the nexus of his entire world, she has to fight tears. In the war, it was the same: a pledge hidden beneath ordinary words. She'd taken it... not as her due, but as something for her use, like her sword or her strength.

It is different now. He is evolving beyond her supplicant; she is no longer simply his Queen. Some days it is a delight, other days an uncertainty. Their roles are changing as surely as they are, a storm that unsettles both their equilibrium.

How can she introduce children into that? What if it's a disaster waiting to happen?

She tries to dispel the thought.

"And those, um, 'machinations'?" she says. "Did they include him becoming your manager?"

"I suspect they are a mere stepping stone. I have never understood his motives. But—" The low-key equivalent of a shrug. "It is why I am here."

 _Why I am here._

With her.

An unexpected gratitude sends shivers down Saya's spine. Her eyes soften on his, letting him see the trend of her thoughts. Memories of last night twist tantalizingly between them.

In the next beat, in a one-step-two-step like the mechanism of two clockwork dancers in a music box, they come together.

Haji's arms pass around her, his loom softening into a nuzzling embrace. Sighing, Saya tips her head back. Then his mouth catches hers and the sigh cracks into a moan. The kiss barely breaks before it renews. Shivering, she cups his face in her widespread hands, feels his fluttering pulse. Smooths her fingers down his nape, across fine hair that feather into cool skin. The need to touch him is a thirst.

"Saya," he breathes, his hands cradling her body with worship, a splay of fingers from breasts to ribcage to hips, urging her closer like a dance but dirtier. And like a dance, her body melts into a _tango-voleo_ of voluptuousness, all her weight balanced on her tiptoes and everything in her vibrating with the plucked string of excitement.

It is always this way. A solid superstructure of love, overlaid by a lust-beset wildness. The stormy dichotomy of past-present only intensifies the scary potential for shipwreck.

Yet it intensifies, too, the joys of smooth sailing.

"Did you sleep up all right?" Haji whispers.

"Mmm." Her smile is a peek-as-boo of shyness. "Like taking laudanum."

"Without the constipation, I hope."

Lightly, she slugs his arm. "We need to work on your patter."

"Oh?"

"GI issues aren't my idea of swoony romance."

"I see." He is plainly trying not to smile. "What would you prefer?"

"I dunno." Balanced on one foot, the other playfully popped, she loops a finger into the buttonhole of his coat. "You could tell me I look blooming, and smiling, and pretty. Your sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek and rosy lips…"

His almost-smile becomes a full one at the shared recognition. _Jane Eyre_ , read beneath the soft glaze of rainfall at the Zoo, decades ago. "With radiant hazel eyes?"

"New-dyed, I suppose."

"I hope not." He circles her closer. "Your eyes are your own. I would change them for nothing."

 _Oh_ , she thinks, a giddy flush curling down her body. "What about the rest of me?"

"Even less."

Always a man of few words, Haji. Yet the very matter-of-factness is an admission of purest love. Her pulse flutters, already at the heights of swoonyville, no romance necessary.

Head resting against his chest, she smiles. "I've got a half-mind to drag you back upstairs."

"Only half?"

Embarrassment is a heat-fuzz across her cheeks. "I'm, um, pretty sore after last night."

"That can be remedied."

"Oh?"

Haji's voice darkens, alongside his gaze. A sultry look? A spellbinder. "There are virtues in kissing it better."

 _Oh oh oh._ The tips of her ears burn, and the surface of her skin. She soothes it with a kiss—cool on hot, like cream with a gulp of steamy buttered rum. Draws back only to swipe her tongue across his lower-lip, the sunlight capturing the heightened vision of his face: the heavy eyelids, the dizzily blue gaze, the soft mouth in the sculpted frame of his starved-looking face.

Then she smiles, and sinks to her knees.

Afterward, when Haji has returned the favor, with lapping, luscious, lascivious interest, she sprawls with disheveled serenity on the couch, her skirt crumpled around her thighs. Her Chevalier kneels by her feet, jealous of letting go, head like a sleek black cat resting in her lap. She smiles at the purr resonating from his throat.

"Haji?"

"Hm?"

"Thank you."

"What for?"

"For last night. And today." She sinks her fingers into the tapestried spread of his hair. "The stirfry and cookies. The roses."

"You saw my note?"

"Mm." Sitting there, sedately blank, memory is slow to return. "What did you mean, 'called away'? Did something happen?"

Pensive, Haji rubs his cheek against her thigh. "There was troubling news."

Saya's languor fades. Frowning, she sits up. "What do you mean?" Her first thought is to Kai, and the twins. "Oh God. Did something happen at Omoro?"

"Not Omoro." He hauls in a measured lungful of air, and tips his eyes to hers. "It was a memo from Red Shield. Joel's heart surgery is scheduled for today. His secretary wished to leave provisional instructions, in case—"

"In case?"

The expression on his face, sad, somber, fills her with dread. He is still holding her. She lets him. But the radioactive melt of pleasure has already curdled into tension.

"It is an aortic repair," Haji says. "The procedure is not without complications. Should something go awry, Joel wished to speak with David and Kai."

"But not me?"

Haji's lips purse together. And realization sparks into a bright flame of anger. "You didn't _tell_ me?"

"It was before dawn. You were asleep."

" _Not_ _hibernating_!"

"Saya—"

"How could you do that!? Not tell me about something so dire—"

"Not dire. Saya—it was a brief meeting. For protocol's sake. If it were something worse, you know Red Shield would call you directly."

"Or would you take the call yourself, since _my_ opinion wasn't needed?"

"Of course not." Troubled, he lifts a palm to caress her cheek. "I intended to inform you as soon as you were awake. But unless there was an emergency, there seemed no sense in worrying you."

His tone is so piteously earnest. Yet her anger is simmering too high to be appeased. A sense of... not suffocation, but imbalance that keeps renewing itself.

Queen and Chevalier in the past, lovers in the present, yet their intimacy is still by no means equality. How can it be? He has time, a life, a network—all the requisites to be a full person. Whereas she only has three years, a former secret weapon of a nearly-defunct organization with no fallback, no future.

The circumstances of her Awakening make it worse. As fragile and volatile as her mental state is, Haji has redoubled his protectiveness. For her best interests, yes. But how can they be partners when she has the pedestal of Queen but no power, a life of indulgences but no agency?

It isn't that he's caging her. Far from it. But his very solidity in the world—in his _self_ —is a reminder of her own precariousness.

Again, she thinks of Nathan's tincture.

 _Consolidate your place._

How are daughters remotely tied to place? Carrying them _killed_ Diva. And her sister was crazy. Who knew why she was so fixated on children?

 _Because the only sovereignty she could win was through her body?_

Her body—and therefore her time in the world. Free for thirty years to live as she pleased, love as she pleased. Free from the Long Sleep that left her dependent on her Chevaliers for protection.

Frowning, Saya nudges Haji away. Shakes down her skirt and rises to her feet, smoothing back damp licks of hair. Haji straightens too, but more slowly. His gaze—at once pleading and reproachful—is hard to bear.

"Saya…"

She doesn't look at him. Bitterness edges into her voice like a blade, "Is it because I'm crazy that you don't tell me important things anymore? Or are you just taking a page from Joel's book?"

"Joel?"

"Our Joel. From the Zoo." She fights the burn of encroaching tears. "He bought you as a toy for me. I guess it's karmic that you treat me the same way now."

"Saya— _no_." He tries to take her shoulders, but she jerks away. She can feel his wretchedness rising, not like a needle into the red but a slow heaviness of fog that makes a whisper of his voice. "Saya, the last thing I want—have _ever_ wanted—is to treat you as a toy. I am sorry I did not tell you about Joel. I should have considered your feelings. But it was not done to—to shut you out. We simply did not think it was a crisis."

"Oh? Or were you afraid I'd lose my mind and become a _crisis_ myself?"

"Saya—"

Misery crushes her chest. She doesn't let herself look at him. "Sometimes I wonder… if this is a second chance, or a swap."

"A swap?"

"Sometimes I feel like I've ended up no better off than Diva. All the playtime in the world. But no purpose."

She knows the blunt statement will shock Haji. Hurt him. But it is also the truth. _Her_ truth, at any rate, and the lens that colors her reality.

At the window, sunlight spangles across the slice of sea. Its color is the same glittery purple as the tincture in her dress pocket. Slipping a hand inside, she touches it furtively. "We both grew up in cages, Diva and me. In a way, we never left them. Hers was her insanity. And mine..."

Haji stays silent, not finishing it for her. Refusing to let her say that her life is a cage.

She looks at him then. His face holds the complex substructure of despair. Not for himself, but _her_. Yet it does nothing to bring them closer. Her own strangeness is always like rime on the glass between them.

Again, she thinks back on Nathan's words. She has no idea if he was telling the truth. Even if he was, babies aren't going to solve anything. Not forever. Thirty years awake is a small consolation to what she truly wants. Her own personhood. A rich life, with Haj's love and his company as long as they both remain in the world.

Yet it's more than what Diva got.

She whispers, "While you were gone… Nathan told me some things."

Haji frowns. "What?"

As steadily as she can, she relates everything to him. About her mother. About Chiropterans and their blood. About Queens and Chevaliers. About the chance for children.

She expects Haji to be shocked, or at least curious. But once she is finished, he glances away. A fine thread of tension draws his brows together. He doesn't appear to be mulling the information over. He is _stewing_ , as Dad might've said. Bubbling with something almost like anger.

"What is it?" Saya asks.

Haji's face swiftly recomposes into a flatline. "Do you truly believe that rot?"

 _Rot?_ She is stunned. "Shouldn't I? I mean—Nathan's hardly _honest_. But he'd gain nothing from lying. Not about this."

"I disagree. He'd gain a great deal from disrupting your life with drama."

"Haji—"

" _Or_ making you fall ill. For no reason other than to laugh in your face." He sighs, with the old overtones of exasperation from their Zoo days. "Saya. This _potion_. You have no idea what it contains. You cannot drink it simply because he claims it is a cure-all."

"I _know_ it's not. But what's the harm in trying? If it means thirty years of staying awake—"

"You have never wanted to be a mother."

He says this flatly, a stark summation that betrays nothing of his interior—even as it pierces hers. Why is he acting this way? So closed-off beneath the veneer of courtesy, the way he'd been that night at the Met. As if she is swandiving into…

Realization uncoils inside her. "You don't think I should have children!"

Haji shakes his head, his troubled eyes never leaving hers. "You have just freed yourself from a terrible burden. You cannot throw away your life for—"

"It's my _choice_!"

"To be shackled to more duty? To play mother to two potential problems when you could instead be enjoying your life, with freedom and options—"

"You sound like this is some awful last resort!"

"No. I think it is a misguided obsession for crossing off everything on your checklist of _normalcy_ , just to say you can."

She rears up with renewed anger. "There's no _checklist_!"

"No?'

" _No_." Taking a breath, she forces the emotions down. It isn't easy—she is full of stubbornness, and a deep-down defensive itch. But she needs him to _understand_. To prove that whatever her failings, she is desperate to be engaged to this life. Devoted to him, in a way she cannot prove except with action.

Moving closer, she skims her fingertips from his shirtsleeve to his hand. Gestures of girlish persuasion, stolen from TV shows and _Cosmo_ articles. But the emotions are real enough. Haji's head lowers a notch, his eyes at once wary and soft on hers. Dust motes dance in the sunlight around their bodies, and she senses the erratic joules of energy pouring off him.

Not hostility but pleading.

She pleads her case in turn, "Our time together is so short. Practically nothing. That's why I want to give you something worthwhile. Thirty years of my time. And… a part of myself."

"Saya." Helplessly, he brings her hand to his lips. Kisses it with pensive tenderness. "Can't you trust me when I say you are enough?"

It is exactly what she knew he'd say, and that makes it worse.

"How can I be?" She jerks away. "Half the time, I'm never there. And when I am, all I do is upset you and confuse you. I'm all f-fucked up inside."

"Saya—"

She gives him a harsh look. "Maybe _that's_ why you can't stand the idea of children. They might be like me. Awful and vicious and crazy."

"That is not true. If you were—and please remember, crazy is _your_ word—then your life would be vastly different."

"Like Diva's, you mean."

He doesn't refute that. "You are not Diva. Children were what _she_ wanted. I want you to think clearly about what _you_ want."

"I want _this_!"

"You want the _idea_ of it."

"That's not fair! You don't get it at all!" A sob catches in her throat; she forces it back. She refuses to dissolve into tears in front of him, not when it would too easily be construed as manipulation. Yet the longing is a salty sea inside her. Unconsidered except as a ticket to thirty years of freedom, the babies— _theirs_ —are suddenly as real to her as Haji himself.

But also real as _Diva_ —the miracle and madness of her.

Saya could cherish them as Diva never got to cherish her own children. The way Diva _herself_ was never cherished.

She whispers: "I know it's hard for you. Waiting for thirty years for someone so… unstable. But Haji—" Her voice breaks. "It's not easy for me either. Living in this limbo. Not really here but not really gone. I need something solid. Something the two of us can share—until I catch up to where you are."

"Saya." The rigidity in his shoulders melts. He takes her face in his hands. "I am right here."

"No."

"Not no. I _am_. I understand what you mean."

"You _don't_. Otherwise you wouldn't talk me out of this. You wouldn't treat me like I don't know my own mind."

"Saya—"

She has no idea what he's going to say. She doesn't care. It just condenses down to one word:

 _No_.

The tears are verging on meltdown. She wrenches away violently, swatting his hands aside before racing out the villa's door with a bang.

* * *

 _Where are you off too, sweet Saya?_

Tórir is perched by the railing, squinting in the shimmer of sunlight. Saya, emerging from the villa's chrysalises, has taken off down the stone pathway to the beach.

Weeks' worth of rain has yielded a pure blueness of sky and a rich freshness of air. Soaking in these glories, Tórir revels in the unexpected glimpse of a third.

This far inland—away from the villa, its atmosphere jangling unpleasantly with the presence of the _blodprinsen_ —he'd hoped for strategic distance, but also a chance just like this.

He knows it is a risk. If the Red Queen's old Chevalier—no doubt surveilling the territory—finds him, then his troubles will be infinite. Worse, Saya's own sense of recognition ( _haragei_ , as they call it here) is highly attuned. If he does not want to frighten her off, he will have to be patient. Hide his true intent. And then, take from her everything the Queens of years past stole from him.

 _Patience._

 _Save your wrath for when you truly reveal yourself._

 _Or when she does._

Then it hits him. Watching Saya flit down the steps, it abruptly, crashingly hits him:

She is _alone_.

He can't spot that tiresome Haji. Can't sense the dissonant blood-music that heralds the _blodprinsen_. She is well and truly on her own. Her body is a bright fingerling of flame in spring colors. Tears shine at the cups of her eyelids. Her legs propel her furiously across the beachhead, little feet kicking up glittery puffs of sand.

Bare of shield, stripped of sword, devoid of shelter.

It is too good to be true.

Tórir aches to swoop in and snatch her up. But that is too hasty. Not here, so close to the villa. Not in broad daylight, the beach so crowded. Instead, he satisfies himself with shadowing her. She radiates anguish, from her head to her hurrying feet. Dodging past strollers at the beach, leaping across driftwood in the sand, sidestepping a skateboarder performing tricks along the walkway—her every movement telegraphs it.

Yet her path glows in Tórir's brain with a near-imperceptible luminosity: footprints like flattened, misshapen stars on dirty soil. Past the beach she goes, left, right, left again, then up, up, up. Past the sidewalk, along the thoroughfare.

"Purple sweet potato popsicles, missy!" shouts an ice cream vendor at the corner street, surrounded by crowing children. "Cool you off in the heat!"

She frowns—tempted?—then shakes her head and keeps moving. Past the rustic simplicity of Asahigoaka Park, where a white-clad row of geriatrics go through _tai chi_ forms. Up the cracked sidewalk where families flow in the opposite direction, hefting beach gear and jawing merrily. Across a parking lot, where the noon radiance makes the old cars glitter. A group of construction workers, squatting on a cigarette-break, call rowdily after her. She ignores them. It is as if the rest of the street is nonexistent to her.

She doesn't stop until she is at Gokukuji Cemetery. Here, all is trees and stone. A leafy green silence fills the space.

Dabbing at her teary eyes, Saya disappears past the gates.

Tórir follows.

He knows he should not. It is dangerous to accost a Queen at such moments. More dangerous still, if her Chevalier interrupts. Should that happen, it will spoil all the plans glowing in his skull just for _her_.

Yet he cares not. Danger is always an attraction more than a detriment for him.

 _I want… merely a crumb from her._

 _A taste to whet my eyeteeth._

Ahead, Saya moves through rows of granite grave markers. Rays of sunlight glint off their crumbling geometry. Tórir hears the twittering of birds, the sawing swoon of wind. But there are no humans in the vicinity. Not in the entire stretch of the graveyard.

 _How wonderful._

Drifting up the pathway, Tórir drinks in the solitary shape of her. Her skirt, with each three or four steps she takes, delineates the comely curves of her backside and the sleek lines of her thighs in evanescent sweeps of rose-delicate fabric. Her hair, silk and shadow, grades into a downy fuzz at her temples. At her shoulderblades, fibers of muscle twitch like the nervous flutter of a sparrow's wings.

But she is no sparrow. She is a little Queen sprung from the old, a living _mise en abyme_ of memory in motion.

Tórir smiles, and goes after her.

 _Let us see what you've got._

* * *

 _I hate this I hate this I hate this._

Hormonal ravings. But the sentiment is heartfelt enough.

Seething with tears, Saya wanders through Gokokuji's cemetery, barely a stone's throw away from the villa. Her first impulse was to go to the beach. But even at its most desolate, she couldn't find total solitude. Too many strollers: locals, tourists, teenagers, families, out in the sunlight, enjoying the mild salty air.

Saya hadn't been able to look at the small children without something curdling inside her.

So she'd come here, to the heart of the cemetery, where all is quiet and dead and still. Sago palms and grand old _fukugi_ trees guard the pathways with a green somberness. Dappled afternoon sunlight falls through their latticework of leaves, making a honey-gold inlay over the stone memorials.

The place reminds Saya not of a haunting-ground but a solemn paradise, its atmosphere seeping into her until she can rebuild a calm buffer around herself.

Or try to.

Her mind keeps winging around her argument with Haji. _Checklist. Potential problems. Misguided obsessions._

How _dare_ he? Doesn't he understand what a missed opportunity this is? The absolutely only children they could have— _ever_ —might be during this Awakening? Yes, children have never been in the cards for them. Yes, she's never imagined herself as a mother. But the prospect of thirty years by his side, with Kai and the others... that changes everything.

It makes it an _emergency_.

 _You're being hasty,_ Diva warns.

 _You can't drop a handful of bombshells in his lap and expect him to go along._

 _Give it a few days. Let him think it over._

 _Let_ yourself _think it over._

Better still, she should let Julia examine the tincture. What if it's toxic? What if this is Nathan's elaborate revenge for murdering her sister? Or worse, a cruel prank?

 _Or what if it's real?_

As soon as she thinks it, that weird sensation from earlier returns: a woozy headrush as all the blood in her body pools to her womb. Her pulse marches on double-time: hope and terror. The conflict of emotions—the confluence of them—makes her dizzy. She's never had a challenge like this, a richness of choices that serve only to underscore what Diva lacked. The visions, the voices, her talk with the _yuta_ … that makes it worse. There seems already an alien presence inside her, transforming her from inside out. Can a pregnancy purge it, atone for Diva's loss, remake her broken life?

Or is it Saya's own brokenness that the babies will benight? Out of sight, out of mind?

Inhaling raggedly, Saya steadies herself against a headstone.

 _God_.

Fighting Chiropterans is child's play compared to this.

In her dress pocket, her mobile rings. Without thinking, she answers. "H-Hello?"

" _Finally_!"

"Oh—Kai."

"Yeah, who else?! Why didn't you answer before? I've been trying to reach you for the past forty minutes!"

"Um. I was—" She has no idea what to say. How can she tell Kai about her conversation with Nathan, or her fight with Haji? About the chance for babies? She's afraid words will dislodge the fragile ovum of possibility before it burgeons into full-bodied truth. "What's wrong? Did you need something?"

"Saya—there's bad news. You need to come to Omoro."

"Why? What's happened?"

"It's better we talk in person. You need to—"

Saya doesn't hear the rest. Her instincts snap to alert. A crawling sense of déjà vu.

Someone is watching her.

The same someone from Sakurazaka Street. She recognizes the energy: a spiky current of menace. Like before, her body responds. Heartbeat accelerating. Muscle fibers twitching in her arms and legs. An acrid dump of adrenaline pouring into her gut.

And that same voice of primal command in the brain: _Move_.

On the phone, Kai's voice is hoarse with distress, "Saya, come to Omoro. David and the rest are already there. We have to—"

"Kai. I need to go."

Switching off the phone, she stows it away. Her eyes go left and right, alert as a cat reading her surroundings.

 _Who is that?_

Unlike before, she has no intention of fleeing. The reflex—maddening—is still present. She resists it. She's sick of jerking at strange shapes in the dark, breaking into gooseflesh at mysterious whispers, freezing at the slithers of would-be snakes at the corners of her eyes.

Man, beast—whatever this thing is, she needs to run it down.

Outwardly, she stays calm. No flinching tremors or overt glances. She doesn't want to give the game away. Predators telegraph killing intent the same way prey exude a caught-in-headlights shock at being in their sightlines. But Saya has learnt years ago to condition herself against giving off either signal.

Sakurazaka Street's disaster was a fluke.

This will be—for her enemy—a fatality.

Wind stirs the treetops. She wanders the stone paths, absorbed in the lovely antiqueness around her. Discreetly, her hand dips into her dress pocket. Not for Nathan's tincture, but for the onyx Hideaway blade that Haji had given her shortly after that night.

She curls two fingers around the handle, prepared to whip it out if action is required.

The energy in the air burgeons. Despite the bright sunlight, it reminds Saya of being trapped inside a cave: a dirty, congealing darkness that layers her skin like an oil-slick.

Then she hears footsteps.

They echo off the stone walkways: quiet and measured. As they grow closer, so does the dark energy tingeing the air. Through the green foliage at the treeline, a figure materializes. A man, in nondescript jeans and a buttondown shirt, sandals at his feet. Nothing unusual about him: he appears to be of average height and build, his face bisected in shadow by a broad straw hat. She can't make out his features or the color of his hair.

But he is, without a doubt, the epicenter of the staticky energy in the air.

Saya's eyes narrow. _Who is he?_

Has he been lurking here—or did he follow her? Why hadn't she sensed him sooner? The questions buffet her brain, while his disturbing energy makes her skin crawl with a visceral chill.

Fear, or anticipation?

In her pocket, the phone rings again. She puts in on silent. Pauses by a _Sekid_ _ō_ grave marker, pretending to read its faded engravings. In her peripheral vision, the man drifts closer. Just before he gets within twenty feet of her, Saya moves again. Past the rows of graves, past the mausoleums both modest and elaborate, toward an obscure path that snakes up a hilltop, to be enveloped by the forest in a verdant, smooth-running darkness.

On cue, the figure follows her.

Saya picks up her pace. Sunlight ghosts off the thick trees, but doesn't penetrate to the floor, which is carpeted in dead cicadas. Treading across their exoskeletons, she feels as if she is walking across a graveyard of brittle bones.

The figure pursues, feet barely crunching across the strewn cobblestones. She has no idea what he wants. No idea if he is recon for an enemy, or bait intended to lure her toward a trap where a team will ambush her.

It doesn't matter.

Whoever the man is, her gut says that he is trouble.

The pathway branches westward, narrowing, winding, hemmed by sinewy strangler-figs. Dark finger-shaped fronds lap at her body. Saya keeps a steady clip, listening to the stranger's footsteps behind her.

She wonders if he is armed. Firearms are severely restricted in Japan, but Okinawa has enough ex-military at its shores that obtaining a gun isn't as big a hassle as many might believe. She hadn't seen any tell-tale bulges under his clothes. Blades, maybe?

Only one way to find out.

With unexpected speed, she whips around the corner. There is a grove of fig trees there, branches hanging with knobbed roots, their barks shaggy with rust fungus. A hushed silence envelops the place: barely a breath of wind or a treble of birds. The figure chases after her, startled at having lost her so quickly.

 _Now._

From her perch among the branches, Saya drops down on him from above.

At the last split-second, the man darts out of her way with preternatural alacrity. Like a cat.

Like a ...Chiropteran.

The leaf-strewn ground rises up to meet Saya: she rolls at the last moment and spins to her feet. But the brief lull is enough for her opponent to lunge at her, rotating his hips to swing a powerful kick at her head.

Saya catches his foot and drops him to the ground. Barely winded, he tumbles, rolls, and comes back on his feet in the same movement, facing her. She has knocked his hat off. By the refraction of the watery green sunlight, his face is visible.

Saya lets off an indrawn gasp of horror.

The head… isn't a head at all. It is completely smooth, bald as eggshell, the features seemingly melted off from forehead to chin. Bare slits of eyes, two crude holes for nostrils, and a larger one for the mouth. It reminds her of photographs of burn victims. Except there are no scars on the flesh. Nothing at all, that would connect the stranger to a living person.

This isn't a face, Saya realizes crazily, but a mask.

A cipher.

"Who—what are you?" she says. "What do you want?"

The man—creature—doesn't answer her. But in the dimness, his eyes glow blue.

Just like _Diva's_.

Then he lunges at her.

Saya sees him coming in slow-motion. Each split-second melting into the next, yielding a gruesome transformation. His eyes expand from slits into huge opaque orbs, almost multifaceted, like a creature who navigates by ultraviolet vision. The uneven orifice of his mouth spans to cover half his face, studded with rows of sharp teeth. A pair of canines, long and white, curve below the jawbone.

For a moment, leaping airborne, suspended in a heartbeat's scrutiny, he reminds Saya of a snake swooping at its prey.

Then he is upon her, slamming her to the ground in a frenzy of muscle and teeth.

The impact is bone-rattling. Grunting, Saya twists under his weight; they go tumbling down the slope, carpeted in dead leaves, the creature angling for her throat. On reflex, Saya thrusts a forearm under his windpipe, forcing his head away. Her other hand scrabbles for the Hidedaway knife in her dress.

She whips it out, slashing elliptically. A red line opens across the creature's chest. Blood sprays. The creature _roars_ —like thunder caught in a hundred stormclouds.

It isn't agony. It is _triumph_.

Then he is upon her again, his weight colliding with hers, shoving her back across the damp soil with its moldy layer of leaves. For a moment, Saya is turtled, hands flailing and legs scissoring as she tries to fight him off. Her knee slams into his flank with vicious force. At the same time she slashes with the knife again, sunlight catching in a dull patina across the onyx. It slices into the tendons at the creature's shoulder.

He snarls, and she throws him off.

Her heart is stumbling over itself: a reaction not unlike when she'd first seen a Chiropteran at her highschool.

What is this creature? _Who_ is he? His proximity makes her senses seasaw crazily. And he is _fast_. Everything in his movements suggests a fighter's grace honed to lethal sharpness.

Whereas Saya's own reflexes, despite her daily regimen, feel at half-speed.

Or has it always felt that way? Since her Awakening, it seems like the stagnation has made her logy and stupid.

 _Never mind that._

 _Focus on the threat._

In a twinkling, she is on her feet. The creature mirrors her, almost playfully. His eyes, like funhouse lights of neon blue, meet hers.

For a moment, in a déjà vu identical to the vision at the _Philharmonic's_ concert, Saya sees the moment overlapping with a hundred others. Moments independent of her memory, a glittering cascade of them pelting her like shards.

 _…A small dark-haired woman with eyes like hers, poised like a figurehead at the prow of a longship. A band of warriors, with weapons and wiles, disembarking at the fringes of a tropical green island. Nightfall, and rain hitting at a powerful slant, as they converge on a sparse entourage of soldiers guarding a tall hooded man. And the trap sprung, victory crumbling to defeat, enemies pouring from their hiding places, countless, savage, slashing, until the tiny band's weapons are not enough, and they fall, bones snapped, throats slit, bodies trampled, and the small dark-haired woman fights on, facing off against a foe with the same faceted blue eyes and teeth like white spears as blood spills and thunder rolls and a burst of lightning delineates the woman in silver as she lunges with two blades upraised and her face blind and vengeful and screaming…_

The vision passes, leaving Saya disoriented, shaken.

It is the opening her opponent needs.

She feels more than sees him coming: a swift-moving blur that knocks her down with one crippling punch. Saya flies across the grove, slamming into a tree trunk. Splinters crack and birds go flying. She sags a moment, stunned.

In the next beat, she catapults herself at her enemy.

They collide in mid-air. And the attack becomes a carnage.

There is no time to think. Only to act. They trade blows, a blistering hailstorm: right to the body, left to the body, slash to the arm, kick to the skull.

It isn't like fighting any of Diva's Chevaliers. Or... more like fighting all of them at once. Phantom's theatrical sadism melded with Solomon's dancelike evasiveness; James' steely precision colliding with Amshel's implacable solidity. By themselves, each of man was a fair match for her. But she'd always held her own.

Not so here.

It is as if he can read her mind—she can't surprise him. Can't overpower him. He doesn't signal, or stumble, or slow. The violence is a steady escalation, a strategic attrition.

Worse, she can't get a deep blow and use her blood. Twice, thrice, she slashes the red-slicked Hideaway across his body.

Each time, he evades, letting off a terrible ululation that only fuels his onslaught.

Bit by bit, Saya's adrenaline leeches away, so each blow aches like bullets. As the battle unspools, exhaustion sinks in. Her bones feel like lead: every movement she makes is devoted not to knocking him down, but keeping herself standing.

Then her opponent catches her with a clubbing elbow to the throat.

Saya gags, her larynx nearly snapping. The Hideaway blade skitters to the ground. Off-balanced, she can't do more than raise a hand when the next blow comes: a straight-on punch to the belly that rearranges internal organs in a shrieking aria of agony and sends a gout of blood spraying from her mouth.

The world is glazed to a strange pinkness: trees and soil and sky and sunlight seen through rose-colored glasses of the ugliest shade.

Slumping to her knees, she falls sideways to the ground.

Her opponent approaches her slowly. Through her reeling vision, he changes shape again. The serpentine face smoothing once more to a cipher. The body, of medium ordinariness, reforming into a physique dense with muscle: a broad torso tapering to a supple waist and powerful thighs. His footsteps boom like thunder across the underbrush.

With casual contempt, he prods her ribs with his toe. "Finished already?"

It is barely a whisper, indecipherable over the staticky ringing in her ears. Yet vaguely familiar.

 _Where have I heard that voice?_

When she doesn't answer, the prod becomes a sharp gut-blow.

Groaning, Saya curls up against the white-hot pain exploding through her. Her mouth is filled with corrosive blood and her bowels feel heavy, like she's swallowed a rusted anchor that is trying to drop out.

Snatching a fistful of her blouse, her attacker hauls her up. Limp, Saya dangles a foot off the ground. Her skull is a weighty ball of pain, lolling sideways.

Staring into the creature's eyes offers nothing. Their flat aspect shines only with glee. Like a malicious child ready to slice a pretty butterfly open, and learn whether its insides will yield a fanfare of blood or something putrid with rot.

"Not yet," he whispers. "You are not finished yet. Am I not correct?"

Saya's lips move without sound. Her body is a rictus of agony.

The stranger's eyes narrow. He drags her closer. "Answer me. Am I not correct?" She shudders involuntarily when he puts his lips to her ear. "There is more inside you, yes? We have not finished, but barely begun."

"I—"

He _slams_ her up against a tree trunk. Breath woofs out of Saya on a fine red mist. He crowds in close, one thigh wedged between hers. One hand encircles her neck; the other cradles her head, turning it this way and that, a wordless inspection like of a pony advertised as a thoroughbred.

"This cannot be all I am left with," he says. "Weak imitations. Queens unworthy of the title."

 _Queens?_

Saya's eyes widen. The word is like catgut twining around her brain.

"Who—" Blood froths from her lips. "Who are you?"

The glowing-blue eyes squinch at her. Amused.

"Ask yourself the same question."

"Wh-what do you want?"

He presses closer. His body slides against hers. Saya feels the dampness of blood and the heat of her own revulsion. His erection is pressed with obscene matter-of-factness against her belly. Yet the entire focus of her sensorium remains on those blue eyes.

"I crawled out of Hell just for you," the stranger says. "I am here to give you a taste."

Déjà vu sluices down Saya's spine. Her breathing hitches. She'd had a nightmare like this, someone speaking the exact words, a sea of blood and mounds of skulls and Diva's deranged smile and snakes uncoiling and a monster trapping her in a kiss and oh God oh God oh God…

She struggles to escape the stranger's grip. His hand tightens on her throat. Saya hears her own breathing, muffled, interrupted. Her vision thinning and her consciousness sinking, against her control, but as all mass is meant to sink. Her mouth falls open, choking.

The stranger leans close. His cool lips cover hers. It isn't a kiss. He is aspirating her distress. Soaking it up like a sponge.

"I will pry you open," he promises, "Peel you apart layer by layer. Until you are everything I want."

"…"

"There is more inside you. I feel it." He nuzzles her bloodstained cheek. "You do as well."

He touches his tongue to each blood-splotched spot on her face: eyelids, cheekbone, chin, lips. She tries to twist her head away, but his fingers squeeze tighter on her throat. Black spots erupt. Saya's breaths—what little are left—come in jagged gusts.

"Feel your blood beating inside," he whispers, and laps at where her jaw smooths into neck. "Feel all that power and life begging to pour out. Ask yourself why you do not let it out—as she did?"

Saya arches, trying to pull away again. His words are meaningless: she hears nothing but the drumlike resonance of her faltering heart.

"It's so lonely without her." He sighs. "So empty. But you will do. After I shape you to my liking."

Saya can't speak. Can't _think_. Her body is a stretched rack, full of pulse and pressure.

A lonely thought-fragment passes through her graying mind.

 _I'm going to die._

In her ear, Diva soothes, _No you won't._

 _Let me help you._

From the clearing, there is a whistle of steel cutting air. A silver dagger darts out. It lands with a messy _thwock_ in the stranger's arm. Howling, he jerks back. His grip loosens on Saya's throat.

It is the chance she needs.

One hand snatches the stranger's wrist, where his palm encloses her throat. She _twists_ with all her might—sinews and bones popping. Her other hand changes in an outrush of instinct, reforming into a claw, the fingers splaying into a mottle of black scales, the nails extending into poniards that make Haji's look like stubs in comparison.

She thrusts them, point-blank, into the stranger's eyes.

There is a messy _squelch_. The digits sink with a sickening ease, like into royal jelly. The stranger lets off a blood-curdling _scream_.

Dropping her, he staggers back. Saya collapses in a heap against the tree-trunk.

Blinded, her opponent scrabbles at his eye-sockets. The orbs are ruptured and oozing blood. From the clearing, another dagger flies at him, sinking between his shoulderblades. He jerks as if electrocuted, one arm clawing behind him, trying to dislodge the dagger, the other scrabbling wildly at his eyes.

Over his shoulder, Saya sees Haji swooping in, a familiar dark shape. His energy overlaps the stranger's: a sharp sheeting of gray-blue ice.

The stranger feels it too. His scream this time isn't agony—but _rage_. He reminds Saya of a child throwing a dangerous subspecies of tantrum, outraged at having his playtime interrupted.

But interruption or not, he doesn't stick around.

Blood dripping from both eyes, he exits in an erratic blur. The disturbed atmosphere in the air dissipates.

Haji has already reached Saya by then. Kneeling, he reaches out to steady her. His eyes—glassed darkly into byzantine and basalt—examine her face, splattered in blood, the lips and eyelids swollen.

"Saya." His voice is hard as stone over the deep well of concern. "Are you all right?"

"I-I think so."

"I sensed you were in danger. But I sensed _him_ as well. Who was that man? A Chiropteran?"

"I don't know."

Her clawed hand is coated with the stranger's blood. Its scent is strangely familiar: shot through with something like _home_.

Haji stares at the talon, so similar to his own. "How did you—?"

"I-I don't know."

Even as she speaks, the appendage is changing, dark-scaled one moment, a dainty curl of fingers the next. Only the coat of blood remains.

Haji's eyes map out the area. She can feel the conflicting impulses in him. To tend to her. To give chase. Then, with a mental shake, he draws back his coat-sleeve. Saya blinks when he brings his wrist close to her swollen lips. "Saya. Drink."

"I don't want—"

"You must." The hard smoothness of efficiency slips away. There is something indefinable on his face. Almost like grief. "You will need it."

"Need it—?"

"I tried to call you earlier. Kai and Red Shield did as well."

"Red Shield—?"

He doesn't answer, but presses his wrist to her mouth again. Something is _off_ about him. Not just wariness over who attacked her, or anxiety over her injuries. He won't quite look her in the eye, his own gaze flitting away, out of her line of sight.

Pain fills Saya in a slough of muddiness. The itch to sink her fangs into his wrist is irresistible. To heal, grow strong, get her sword, and go after the stranger. To slice him up until he howls in surrender and tells her who he is. Another Chiropteran? An offshoot of D67? A Chevalier?

She has no idea.

Opening her mouth, she sinks in her eyeteeth where his veins pulse. Blood gushes in a steadying rhythm, and Saya sighs as it pours into her, her shocky breaths hitching into slowness. By degrees, the pain subsides. When it is—not gone, but tolerable—she draws away. A thin trickle slips down her mouth.

Reaching out, Haji thumbs it away. "Saya. We must leave here. I will contact David and have teams secure the area—until we find that creature. Then we must go to Omoro."

"Omoro?" Saya frowns dizzily, not sure she has heard right. "Why Omoro?"

Haji looks away. "Saya…"

" _Tell me_."

Defeated, he meets her gaze. "It is Joel. His secretary called an hour ago. The operation went poorly."

"Poorly?" Pain becomes not a slough but a stabbing all across her body. "What do you mean?"

"His heart stopped. Midway into the procedure."

Saya's own heart seizes up in her chest. "No. _No_."

"I am sorry, Saya. Joel is dead."

* * *

 _:(_

 _RIP, Joel._

 _The rest of Act II will focus largely on the fallout from this event, with plenty of Red Shield business – in addition to Saya's brewing baby drama. Both issues will end up intersecting rather catastrophically toward the climax of the Act._

 _In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoyed! Comments and critiques are always welcome!_

 _Review, pretty please!_


	24. What If?

_Early update! Continuing the aftermath of Joel's death, and all the drama it entails. Warning for some blood and gore in the middle: Torir throws a temper tantrum of murderous proportions. Other than that, expect some Srs Discussions and Angsty Introspection from our heroes. You know how it goes._

 _As always, I am gratified and delighted by the feedback y'all continue to leave for this tale! I keep every comment in mind as I continue to shape the outline, so if there's certain areas you wish I'd expand on, do let me know!_

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Omoro is closed for the day.

Light through the windows falls dim and chalky. The blue silk of the sun-washed sky has ripped open, the atmosphere once again murky with rain. The acoustics fill Saya's skull like radio static.

Standing by the window, she rubs her arm. Her wounds from the fight have healed. But there are still discolorations on her skin: red, purple, green, blue. Like the stained-glass mosaic in the villa's bedrooms.

Saya wishes she was there. Submerged in cool sheets, and sleeping off the bone-deep agony in her body.

And her heart.

Behind her, David asks, "You're certain he was a Chiropteran?"

He is perched at the counter stool. As always, he is fully functioning: the silver-haired veteran of a war that has taught him not to let the needle of tragedy pierce his tough exterior.

Yet his eyes are faintly red-rimmed. No one, Saya knows, was closer to Joel than he was.

Julia sits on the table across from him, its surface strewn with papers. Her laptop, displaying last-minute itineraries, throws a bluish glow across her pensive face. Dee leans beside her, arms crossed. A dark arrowhead of rain plasters to her T-shirt and darkens the knees of her aquamarine shorts. She'd been out on a jog before the bad weather—and worse news—had struck.

"If he held his own against Otonashi, he must be," she says. "The question is, how did he get here?"

"Maybe something in her blood triggered it?" Bleary-eyed and grim, Kai pours a cup of tea from the kettle boiling in the kitchen. "Sometimes they don't need to hear Diva's song to transform. Right?"

"Those circumstances are rare," Julia says. "Barely 0.5 percent."

"You said the same thing about the blue roses in the villa," Kai argues. "They should've been triggered by _Diva's_ blood. Not Saya's. But they showed up anyway."

"I don't think it's as simple as Diva-this, Saya-that, Kai," Yuri says gently.

She is folded on the couch, fiddling with the end of her ponytail. Beside her, Yumi lolls heavily against the sofa-head, as if too miserable to bother sitting up. Their Chevaliers mooch around the pub, trying and failing to keep busy. Sachi plays _Shima Uta_ on his guitar, softly and falteringly, messing up over and over in the same spot; V squats at a shelf to examine the luminescent blue shell of a coconut crab, perfectly preserved, touching its surface tentatively, as if it might spring to life.

Watching them, Saya wonders: how many times have they all gathered here? Dozens, it feels like. Yet the pub's interior, always glowing warmly from the colored rays of paper lanterns, has become polar-chilled.

Was it that way when they'd lost Dad?

She can't remember. A mercy, perhaps, that the full dimension of her grief has blurred over time, becoming a smudged space at the corners of her memory. Yet Joel's loss is different. Like the impact of a derailed train, his death will catalyze a series of events that they will be powerless to control, but which will leave unimaginable catastrophe behind.

In losing him, Red Shield has lost ten whole layers of sanity.

David asks, "Saya, do you remember anything unusual about the creature?"

Saya frowns. At the window, her reflection is visible against the shimmering rain. Her hair is a bird's nest of tangles, one eye still faintly swollen. Her fingernails are rimmed with red.

 _"There is more inside you. I feel it. You do as well."_

"Saya?" David prompts. "Are you all right?"

"Mm." She returns to reality by degrees. "He was... unusual all over. Except not. He felt like a Chiropteran. He had the same strength and reflexes. Only—" _More_. She draws in a breath. "I think he was a Chevalier."

A ripple of disquiet goes through the room. David's shoulders tense and Kai's knuckles whiten on his cup. In the periphery, the twins stir to attention.

"A Chevalier?" David echoes. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"I am. Everything about him suggested it. Except—"

"What?"

"His eyes. They were different from Diva's Chevaliers. Or any Chiropteran made from D67."

Kai frowns, "What do you mean, different?"

"They were _blue_. Like..."

 _Haji's._

 _Or Diva's._

Perturbed, Julia takes off her glasses. "Saya, are you positive?"

She nods.

The other woman's gaze takes on a bright gleam of focus. "Such a case would be highly unusual. As if the Chiropteran wasn't created from Diva's genetic material, but yours."

"Or a Red Queen in general," Saya says.

"What?"

They stare at her. Self-consciously, she looks away. Trying to decide how crazy she is at the moment: the worn-out adrenaline seems to have left her at the bottom of a dark, dark well.

"When we were fighting," she says. "He spoke about Queens. Like he knew all about them."

"Knew about them how?" David asks.

"He complained about... being left to work with weak imitations. Queens who were unworthy of the title."

Kai's habitual squint deepens into a glower. "You don't think it was _Nathan_ , do you? You mentioned he'd dropped by."

Saya shakes her head. "It didn't _feel_ like Nathan. There was something about him. Something I'd sensed before."

"When?"

"Two months ago. At Sakurazaka street."

Glances pass from Kai to David, David to Julia, Julia to Dee, the twins' heads swiveling fractionally to each other and the boyish topography of their Chevaliers' bodies reforming into that of soldiers.

David says, "If that's true, we need to be vigilant. Once was a coincidence. Twice is a warning sign."

"You're saying, what?" Kai asks. "Something's after her?"

"Or someone. An organization, or a single threat—that remains to be seen." David's expression reflects concern beneath the surface of cyborgian calm. "I'll contact the main office. Post provisional troops at the villa."

"Good idea," says Dee. Like her parents, she's switched into operational default, methodically layering their defense until a strategy emerges. "I've already got a strike-team sweeping Gokukuji Cemetery with Haji. And we have a sample of this Chevalier's blood from Otonashi's hands. Our next step should be to investigate any deaths or disappearances in the area. If he's injured, he'll need to feed."

"Never mind that," snaps Yumi.

She and Yuri are on their feet, crackling with pent-up energy.

"We're gonna hunt him down" Yumi says. "Chevaliers give off a pheromone on the prowl. If he feeds, he'll make himself visible to us. And we can ambush him."

"Hold on a second!" Kai says. "We still don't know what this thing is!"

Yumi cracks her knuckles with a casual belligerence that Saya recognizes as a hand-me-down from Kai. "Once we haul him out of his hiding place, and stake him to a wall, we'll ask him."

"Yumi—"

"He's already followed Saya _twice_ , Kai. If he hurts her again—"

"Yumi, Yuri, wait," Saya cuts in. The girls' defense, touchingly sincere, makes her eyes burn. But they can't afford to be careless. "Kai's right. He wasn't like any Chevalier I've fought before. Stronger, faster. Until we have more information, we shouldn't be hasty."

"Agreed," Dee says. "Right now, it's smarter to check for unusual activity in the vicinity. I'll have scouts looking for any newcomers to the island. Or businesses that could be a front for something shady."

"Shady?" Saya frowns. "You think... he was created at a facility _here_? Made in a lab like the Schiff?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But it's smarter not to rule it out." Dee glances at her. "In the meantime, you should be placed in a secure location."

"We have a stronghold in Tokyo," David suggests. "We could transport her there."

"Mr. David!"

Saya understands the importance of vigilance. But she _doesn't_ need to be stowed away like precious cargo. Everyone is so determined to treat her like spun glass lately. Like they've forgotten she can be strong.

"I'm of better use here," she says. "I can trace his scent. Once we're prepared, I'll help you track him down."

" _Or_ get hurt." Kai shakes his head. "Dee and David are right. If this Chevalier is dangerous, then we need to keep you safe."

"Kai—"

"At least until we figure out what he wants. Or where he came from."

"What if he tries to lure me out? What if he hurts one of you to do it?"

"We must take the proper measures to avoid that.

Haji's voice cuts in, quietly resonant.

The group glances around. Her Chevalier has returned, soundless in the rain-swollen ambiance. A gust of earthy air sweeps into the pub with him. His hair and clothes are sodden with it.

Kai snaps to alertness, "What'd you find?"

"Tracks leading to and from the beach." Wet tangles of hair are strewn across Haji's face. With a precise motion, he sweeps them aside. "There were other tracks at a cliffside near the villa."

This lurches against the air like a buoy hitting a wave.

"What are you saying?" Saya asks. "He _followed_ me?"

"It seems he had intended to for some time." Haji's eyes magnetize hers. "He kept a perch at a remote area of the cliffs. Far enough to evade surveillance, but close enough for a Chiropteran to see into the grounds."

Cold spiders crawl down Saya's spine. "So he's been spying on me?"

"Yes. Possibly waiting to catch you alone."

"What for?" David asks. "To abduct her?"

"Or simply attack her." Against the grayed sheet of rainfall at the window, Haji is almost a silhouette. But Saya sees past his clean-cut profile, into the aurora of perturbed calm. "He could have made off with Saya, if he chose. Or killed her. Instead he engaged her in a fight. As if to test her."

 _"There is more inside you, yes? We have not finished, but barely begun."_

Nausea gurgles. Saya swallows. "But why? Why take such a big risk?"

"One possibility might be to intimidate you," Dee muses. "To let you know he's dangerous, and close."

"But who— _what_ is he? Where did he come from?"

"We'll figure that out once our team examines his blood," Dee says. "For now, we need to keep you safe."

"Miss Dee—"

"I'll accompany you and Haji to the villa. Pack up what you need and leave the rest as it is."

"But—"

"She is right, Saya," Haji intercedes. "Until we learn what this creature is, and the extent of the threat he represents, you must take precautions."

"But if he's trying to intimidate me, then hiding means giving him what he wants!" There is a simmering anger in her chest that she resists, but also a fear-twisted backwash that spews out despite her best efforts. "If he's running amok, he'll attack people! He's probably already done so! The night Adam was hurt at the Bar Junket—what if it was _him_?! The mother and daughter at Uruma—what if _he_ had something to do with it? We can't wait for another casualty until we're sure!"

"We can't." David's lips compress. "But a body-trail can easily become a breadcrumb trail. If he makes another kill, we could get a read on his location."

"Mr. David!"

"I'm sorry, Saya. But unless he makes a reappearance, we're at a stalemate."

"You could use me as bait to lure him out!"

"Saya. _No_." Haji stares at her imploringly. "It is too dangerous. We have no idea if he is acting alone, or if there is an organization backing him."

"We've dealt with organizations before! We've never hidden at the first whiff of trouble!"

"We have never acted without intel, or a proper plan, either."

"Then we'll have to make one up as we go along!"

"Only for you to get hurt—or _killed_ —in the bargain!"

Haji, like her, is adamant by nature, even if that nature is quietly downplayed. But never before has he slammed a rebuke in her face with such harshness.

It startles her. Her Chevalier has seldom raised a word of argument to her schemes, no matter how haywire or harebrained. Her blood is his blood, and that blood does her bidding. Yet lately, she is cognizant of low-key insurgences, enacted not out of petulance, but as signifiers of a different perspective, a distinct voice that is gaining volume as the months pass.

It disorients her, because she'd asked them to be equals when they began. Yet she wasn't prepared to sacrifice her own self-sovereignty in the bargain. It makes her furious—even as she recognizes that the ugly feeling rises from leftovers of their past, the inherent lopsidedness of it.

She is too accustomed to holding him to different standards. Double standards.

Now he is redefining them on his own terms.

They stare each other down, airwaves of anger passing between them. Her family look pointedly elsewhere.

More quietly, she says, "I _won't_ abandon the island while there's a Chevalier's lurking here."

"For the moment we have no choice," Haji says.

"There's _every_ choice!"

"Not exactly," David cuts in, carefully neutral.

Saya turns. "What do you mean?"

"Our best chance is to head out within the next seventy-two hours. The window is small."

"Window?"

"For Red Shield to cooperate as a whole." He exhales. "With Joel gone, a lot of decisions will be deadlocked. At least until a new Joel is selected."

"Oh."

She has no idea what else to say. Hadn't Joel warned her about this, barely two months ago? Easy to forget, amidst the dramas that had cropped up. Silly, meaningless dramas. The indulgences of a spoilt child who didn't realize what an immense safety-net Joel's presence had embodied.

The disintegration of his health seems a terrible mirroring of the disintegration of Red Shield itself, until literally the heart of it has stuttered to a stop.

Gentler, Haji says, "You needn't decide everything today, Saya. But we should leave soon."

"We can move you to Tokyo by tomorrow," Dee suggests. "Joel's funeral will be held in Paris, three days from now. It isn't necessary for you to attend."

Stunned, Saya shakes her head. The idea of skipping the funeral literally floors hers.

 _How could I miss that, when I've already missed so much?_

 _When it's my fault that all this began in the first place?_

It occurs to her that she hasn't attended a funeral since the original Joel's, in 1883. Trauma has scrubbed the details of the event bare: she barely remembers the pre-formalities or the ceremony itself. And with Dad, and Riku, there were no bodies inter, and no time to mourn.

She'd done so piecemeal, and in private. Little icebergs of stillness in the slipstream of the war.

"I..." The words come in a daze. "I just realized. I have no clothes for the funeral."

Not a single black garment in her wardrobe. The summery clothes she'd bought at Makishi Market won't do. They feel all wrong for the occasion, and all wrong for her at all.

The trend of her thoughts— _Clothes? You're worried about clothes?!_ —appalls her. Yet the ordinariness of the thought is a pinprick to the numb bubble in her chest. It pops messily, and in the emptiness that fills itself like a headache of the whole body, a pressure rises to her sinuses and the backs of her burning eyes.

A tear drips down her cheek. Another follows, and a hundred more threaten to leak past the cracking wall of her composure.

Wincing, she turns away, "I'm sorry."

"Auntie Saya." Yumi and Yuri come forward, arms outstretched.

Saya waves them off. " _Please_. I'm—I'm fine."

Beside her, Haji radiates concern. His hands twitch at his sides, but he doesn't touch her. _Good_. She doesn't need his softness right now.

What's the point of it, when he refuses to support her where it counts?

David, poised awkwardly, clears his throat. Saya knows him well. Like her, he plays his cards close to the vest. They all do—the original survivors of the war. Yet, glancing from Haji to David to Kai to Julia, Saya knows their grief for Joel is burrowed deep. It will take its time to metabolize as the emotional replaces the intellectual reality, working at different rates through all their systems.

Strange that she'd be the first to crack.

Carefully, David says, "Pack what you need to. Once you're ready, we'll accompany you to Paris."

"All of us." Kai's voice is like sunbaked steel. "Whoever this monster is, it's better if we don't let him get you."

"The Zoo has rooms available," Dee says. "Privacy and security, too. She could stay there a few days. Until things—" Internally, externally, "—settle down here."

 _The Zoo?_

Reminder hits her. Joel mentioned that the Zoo had been converted to a hotel. He'd planned to demolish Diva's tower, as a symbolic _coup de grace_ , but held off at her request. Why had he done that? It would've been smarter to get rid of it. Why wait for her say-so?

Was it out of duty? Or did the irony of a larger structure destroyed by a swarm of invaders suit his secretly-socialist sympathies?

It's too late to ask.

Her eyes brim with tears. Outside, the pelting rain is like a lamentation.

Staring out the window, Saya thinks, _What are we going to do?_

Haji reaches to touch her shoulder. She jerks away. The aftermath of the battle—the entire brutal day—throbs through her. The faintest touch makes her ache.

Unthinkingly, she slips a hand into her pocket. Nestled inside, astonishingly intact, is Nathan's tincture. Its presence doesn't disquiet her.

It is a _What-If?_ poured into a vial. Hot and strong with promise.

* * *

1 Chome-3

Minatomachi, Naha-shi

Okinawa-ken 900-0001

Jordan Tibbets can't believe his fucking ears.

"He attacked her? _In_ _broad daylight_?!"

Carsten has the grace to look sheepish. In the periphery, Tórir is hunched over a utility sink, splashing water on his face. His face is crusted with blood, and his hair is darkened with it. His shirt is bloodsmeared too, lying in a heap on the grubby tiles.

As Jordan watches, Tórir pushes off his jeans, kicking them away, the gesture bored but also somehow petulant. Like a kid whose outing was interrupted by killjoy adults.

His mismatched eyes flick to Jordan's. Wincing, Jordan looks away. Behind him, his security detail—three armed guards—stand at the ready.

He'd gotten the call from Carsten two hours ago. An emergency, the address of a rendezvous point at an abandoned rest stop near Shinko Pier Central Park, a request for extra clothes and a cooler of blood-packs. On the heels of the call came a panicky announcement from the lab, stating that Red Shield had descended _en masse_ to conduct a sweep of the island and its neighboring inlets. Scouts, scanners, soldiers—the works.

It didn't take Jordan long to put two and two and two together and come up with six. Or, better stated, add Tórir and Red Shield and the terrified phonecall from Carsten and come up with:

 _Trouble_.

Trouble with Tórir's red-stained fingerprints all over it.

Now they're at the empty rest stop, clustered together in the men's room. The entire building has a disused air, its walls the chipped gray of a mausoleum, the floor strewn with trash. Middle of nowhere. The kind of place where corpses are found.

Jordan should be thankful for the armed guards. He's not.

Carsten has already proven to be unhinged. A loon, a liability. But _Tórir_ is the real problem. The guy gives off a miasma of the creepiest kind. Try as Jordan might to convince himself that he's lucked out, that they've hit the jackpot with a bona fide Chevalier, the asset of all assets…

He's not.

Instead he feels massively unprepared. Utterly in over his goddamn fool head.

Except it's too late to pull back. He's like a man trying to hold his ground against a tsunami. It is hopeless. The most he can do is brace himself for impact, and pray he'll come out in one piece.

"He—he wanted a sample of her blood," Carsten says ineptly. "He got carried away."

" _Carried away_?" Jordan grits his teeth. "He's got Red Shield breathing like bloodhounds down our necks! It's a good thing the laboratory at Yabuchi's been razed! But if they get access to any files on the servers—"

"I _know_ , Jordan. Look. It's not so bad. The board gave us green light, right? They planned to relocate us overseas. Get us started with the new project?"

"All that could collapse with one fart! Especially if they catch a whiff of the loose cannon we're lugging around!"

"No one needs to know—"

"Unless he pulls another crazy stunt!" Jordan rakes both hands through his hair. Christ Almighty, the top of his head's gonna be lonely as an eggshell at this rate. "I mean—Jesus, Carsten! What were you _thinking_?! You swore to keep an eye on him!"

"He wanted to explore the city! What was I supposed to do? Put him on a _leash_?"

"Why the hell was he near the Queen's villa in the first place? That's the last place he ought to be—"

"I disagree," Tórir interjects calmly. "It is the _only_ place."

Carsten clamps his mouth shut, and Jordan's shoulders tense, though he does a good job of remaining otherwise in-control. Behind him, the guards hold their positions, weapons at the ready.

"For _you_ , maybe," Jordan snaps. "But it's cost us precious time spent negotiating with our clients."

"If this 'client' is willing to waste days of negotiation with you, despite your prior failures, then they are already sold," Tórir says. "The rest is elaborate theater."

"And you're sure of this because—?"

"Because you have me. For now."

Tórir rotates his head, the joints in his neck cracking.

The sound sends a spikewave of cold down Jordan's spine. He swallows. "Look. I don't know how long you spent in that cave, gnawing on snakes and bats. But that's not how we do things here. There's a process that's necessary for people like us to secure financiers. One misstep and—"

"Your logic is flawed," Tórir murmurs. "As expected."

"Wha—?"

It happens in the space of moments.

Without warning, Tórir moves. His right arm flashes out, the fingers edged like scythes. He swings them, not at Jordan, but at the trio of armed guards. The men, muscles realigning on reflex, raise their weapons.

But it is too late.

Their identical, faintly alarmed expressions don't waver, even when Tórir's clawed arm slices through their throats, a diagonal slash.

Jordan's senses are filled with blood, its scent and taste. One guard slumps facedown, gurgling frothy blood from his torn throat. The second jolts airborne, his jugular ripped open, then drops to his knees with a look of stunned disbelief on his face. Then his head smacks down messily against the tiles, right before the third guard, neck exploding in red, crumples on top of him.

The attack occurs almost noiselessly.

Jordan's mouth drops open. His heart stalls, and keeping upright is an effortful exercise. Not pissing his pants is another.

He's dealt with gore before. But always in the sterile environments of laboratories. Animals cut open for dissection. Human test subjects who signed waivers. He's never confronted violence—the spontaneity and messiness of it—in his entire half-century life.

Now he stares, terror-stricken, at the creature who just popped his cherry.

"Tórir!" Carsten screeches. "Tórir —wh-what the _fuck_ —?"

Tórir ignores him. He is perfectly expressionless, not a hair out of place save a reddish lock curling over his mismatched eyes. Lowering his blood-slicked arm, he flashes fangs in the disconcerting semblance of a smile.

Jordan breathes in hiccupping gulps, near hysteria. And Tórir knows it. In that moment, staring into the other man's eyes, Jordan understands that death holds no dignity.

Just the implacable dictates of a monster's moods.

"I am growing tired," Tórir says. "Of twiddling my thumbs on this island. And having my movements _dictated_ by fools."

Jordan breathes, in and out, his larynx a knot refusing to loosen.

"Even without all the other faults to disqualify you, your inability to grasp your place is enough," Tórir continues. "I am not a show-horse for you to trot out to each new buyer. I could leave at any time it suits me to make alliances elsewhere."

"Tórir—" Carsten stumbles closer, nearly slipping on the smeary tiles. "Tórir, take it easy—take it—"

Tórir's hand lifts, and is held steady. _Silence._

His eyes remain on Jordan's, eerie in their unblinking brightness. "Your silly experiment is not my purview. I am interested only in securing the little Red Queen. Your purpose is to make it easier for me."

"In exchange for her nieces, I-I _know_!" Jordan's voice cracks. But he is too far gone to be ashamed. Everything else is fracturing by the nearness of the threat this monster embodies. "Look, I swear it'll happen! But you need to be patient! You can't just—"

Tórir hits him, a tremendously powerful backhand to the face.

Jordan's head caroms off the wall. Flakes of plaster go flying. Reeling like a drunk, Jordan slides down to the soiled floor, the friction rucking up his shirt along his spine. Red and white flecks dance in front of his eyes.

" _Shit_!" Carsten lurches forward. "Jordy!"

Clumsily, he reaches to help his colleague. Jordan winces; his lips are swelling up like sausages, and he's pretty sure he's cracked a tooth. That in itself would be bad enough. What's worse is the frantic bulge to Carsten's eyes. Like a child whose Saturday Morning Superhero has metamorphosed into the nightmare under his bed.

Tórir ignores them completely. He has already turned away, treading with complete indifference across the fallen guards, a circle of congealing blood beneath them. His bare feet squelch across the puddle, tracking red smudges on the tiles.

"Make arrangements," he says. "It is time I see what else this world has to offer."

* * *

Narita airport is crowded.

Ambient noises hang in the air. Clumps of people drift under the fluorescent glare. Tourists trundling luggage. Families carting children. Through the PA speakers, voices echo and re-echo in Japanese and English. The sensory glut is a full-body migraine.

Haji, after decades of travel, has learnt to tune it out.

Their flight is later tonight—an eighteen-hour sprint from Okinawa to Paris, with a brief stopover in Hong Kong. Fortunately, they aren't flying commercial. A private Red Shield jet is being discreetly fueled at the hangar; they've been let through by airport security with a politely perfunctory check for passports and baggage.

Hefting his cello case, Haji thinks, _Thank God for small favors_.

He's already in the red-zone of alertness. But stifled, also, by the heavy silence. Saya hadn't spoken a word to him during their trip to the villa. In the blur of preparations, she'd kept apart, putting in a word only when necessary, but otherwise staying on the sidelines, her body enrobed as if in a shell.

It was how she'd been after the Bordeaux Sunday. How she'd been, after losing her father at Yanbaru, and after Riku's murder. Saya didn't _deal with_ grief. She swallowed it up, undigested, letting it manifest in troubling physical symptoms: fits of temper, spells of silence, bouts of starvation, all with regrettable consequences.

It bothers Haji. Life's dangers bite at him like vipers. But they can be warded off.

It is different with Saya. Over two centuries as her Chevalier, and he can decode her moods, but never defuse them. Then again, he suspects half the trouble is that Saya can't figure herself out, either, and has to look for glitches under her surface like anyone else.

Right now, she seems… not calm, but on autopilot.

Sayumi and Sayuri have lured her to a Starbucks. Haji watches them select armfuls of treats—chocolates, muffins, tarts—before beelining for the counter to top off their purchases with overpriced cups of coffee. Saya, hugging the goodies to her chest, eyes the display menu. As Haji has predicted, she chooses the joltiest brew on display, betraying her need for a pick-me-up.

Once the girls join V and Sachi at their table, she eats without hunger or relish. Just to sustain her body for the hours ahead.

In the pin-dot lights, her necklace flashes like a signal.

The sight of it unnerves Haji. Saya has never been superstitious. In the early days, her habit of carrying Diva's crystallized remains struck him as strange. But he'd written it off as a private ritual of grief, and resolved not to interfere.

Now it is almost a morbid séance.

"Don't know how they can drink that crud. And at ¥2000 a pop."

Kai yawns and scrubs a hand through his hair. He has the fuzzy air of a man who has barely slept. But the mellowness of his mood suggests it was insomnia well-spent.

He and Dee had stayed over at the villa, as part of Saya's security detail. At night, Dee had taken the guest-bedroom, and Kai the livingroom couch. However, Haji knows the latter was soon abandoned, while the former endured a double-occupancy that was nowhere near as innocent as the crisis warranted.

It is exasperating, but expected. Haji has spent a long time among humans. Long enough to know that in the wake of death, life asserts itself in the most basic of drives.

Ironically, knee-deep in death during the war, he and Saya never succumbed to the lure of sex. They weren't wired that way. Desire was to be circumnavigated; self-indulgence to be mastered. Their personal needs were irrelevant to the completion of the Mission.

As lovers, it hasn't changed.

( _Has anything?_ )

"When will the Silversteins arrive?" Haji asks.

"Soon as they get last minute details settled. Adam needs a leave of absence from school. The news messed up their entire schedule."

"Hm."

Like everything else, life must yield to the crisis of leadership in Red Shield, and the strategies necessary to evaluate the new threat.

 _And protect Saya._

Anger like an ice-burn works its way through Haji's system. He thinks of Saya in the clutches of that Chevalier. Thinks of her bruises, and the cornered-prey gleam in her eyes. Of all the times she has been hurt, this feels by far the most infuriating. Why? Because of the shameful repeat of his failure at Sakurazaka Street?

Or his failure in general? As a Chevalier, a friend, a man.

He seethes—at himself, and at the unworthiness of the anger. Saya would be the first to tell him that he doesn't need to protect her. She is strong, and can watch herself.

And she _is_ strong. The best and bravest person he knows.

But also so _fragile_.

He doesn't just mean the clinical diagnosis of PTSD. That itself holds the anxious spotlight of his focus. But it is overshadowed by a different fragility. Since her Awakening, she radiates an unsettled aura. A supernatural residue that he cannot put his finger on. She is still Saya, the transient surface of Saya. Beneath that is something he barely recognizes. _It's dark in there._ And the darkness is different from the complex coding of trauma, its pathology and spontaneity.

It unmans the most primal piece of Haji, goes straight to his gut and makes him ready to fight and die on her behalf. Whatever it takes to erase that strangeness in her.

 _(How do you kill a threat without a face_?)

He traces his eyes over Saya's three-quarter profile, downcast over her coffee. Remembers the fight they'd had before she'd stormed off. The implausible story of Chiropterans, and Queens and Chevaliers, and…

 _Babies._

Tempting to say she's gone mad. That she is signing herself up for disaster, gulled by a trickster's lies.

Nathan is a mystifying fixture in Haji's life. But he isn't an ally, much less a friend. Haji can rely on him for business, but never trust him—a distinction he can make with ease because he's learnt from boyhood to be pragmatic, to depend on the expedient rather than the ideal. He's from a world where self-compromise was not degradation but a defense, and where the balance of power depended entirely on your willingness to shake the Devil's hands without flinching.

His childhood—sold as a toy for a twisted dollhouse—was built on shaky bargains.

 _(What shakier bargain is there but parenthood?)_

Something in Haji's gut clenches. There is no way to broach the subject with Saya. Not now.

 _(If not now, then when?)_

Her wish is hardly a non-sequitur. He understands that she longs to steady their unbalanced dynamic. Her grief at the finiteness of their time stirs a familiar empathy through him. But motherhood is too risky a venture—especially during such a crisis. His calculus where Saya is concerned is cut-and-dried. Anything that puts her off her game is a threat. Pregnancy—children—could be _fatal_.

The lure of borrowed time holds no appeal to Haji. Thirty years with Saya versus her safety? If asked, he'd make the choice in a heartbeat.

Simple. Straightforward. Settled.

Except that doesn't explain the childish tug of hope in his chest: a plucked eyelash, a shooting star, a birthday candle.

A whisper of: _What If_?

At his shoulder, Kai frowns, "How's Saya holding up?"

"Julia examined her yesterday. Her wounds have healed."

" _That's_ obvious. I meant otherwise."

When Haji doesn't immediately answer, Kai sighs. "I'm guessing that's a 'Not good.'"

"I cannot speak for her."

"I saw." Kai's eyes hold a dry sympathy. "She blows her top if you try."

Haji answers with little expression. "I apologize."

"What for?"

"That you had to see that."

"What? A five-second shouting match?" Kai scoffs. "Like you weren't around to mediate enough firefights between me and Mao."

"That was different."

"Yeah. Saya's just got a crazy streak. Mao didn't have a _sane_ streak. One whole expressway to batshitville, that girl."

"She loved you."

Kai cracks a short, bitter laugh. "Loved me enough to screw around with Akihiro behind my back."

"It was more complicated than that."

"Oh yeah?"

Haji hesitates. Gallantry, and a lingering soft-spot for Kai's ex-fiancée, still strike him at odd moments. By themselves, Kai and Mao were good people. But together, they were a short-fused powderkeg of disaster.

Quietly, he says, "She wanted …a family of her own."

Kai scowls. "So instead of talking to me like a sane adult, she let Akihiro knock her up?" When Haji obdurately says nothing, he sighs, "I never did wanna talk. Not about... settling down. It felt like a jinx. Things were good as they were. Shit—they were better by a hundred percent than I ever thought _my_ life would be. I had Yumi and Yuri. I had my work with Red Shield. I had Omoro. I didn't wanna mess up the equation by bringing tykes into it."

"You were afraid."

"I was. Of change. The big C." Kai's wry not-smile is layered in wistfulness. "I wasn't brave enough. Not the way Mao needed. And probably deserved." He sighs. "It worked out in the end. She's happier with Ahikhiro."

"Have you spoken to her? About Joel's passing?"

"We had a talk. She might fly up to pay her respects. Or opt for a condolence call. Yakuza bosses are a busy bunch." Hands in his pockets, Kai rocks back on his heels, a gesture of blithe detachment at odds with his solemn gaze. "She sounded... floored. Like she couldn't believe Joel was gone." Quieter, "I guess I am too."

Haji nods. "His leadership was invaluable."

"He was more than that. The backbone of Red Shield. I mean, the guy couldn't even _walk_. But he kept fighting. Not for himself, but for the Mission. He put everything on the line for it... the family fortune, his time, his life, and... his _life_. The personal life." His voice drops. "David says his wife isn't a grieving widow so much as a fuming one. She blames Red Shield for eating him alive."

"We have all made sacrifices for the war."

"I hear you." His eyes follow Haji's, to where Saya sits with the twins. "Some more than others."

"It would be wrong to keep score."

"I know. Everyone played their part. It's why we survived." He rubs the bridge of his nose. "Except now the countdown's started."

"Countdown?"

Kai's words are a death-bell distantly tolling. "Before we join Joel. One by one."

Resignation sinks through Haji. Kai is right.

Folly to grow attached to humans. A handful of decades out of a Chiropteran's eternity? Barely a dust-mote in an hourglass. Yet the people Haji fought alongside in the war—Kai, David, Lewis, Julia, Joel—they are special. He respects them, for themselves, and because they are dear to his dearest one, his Queen. He knows that when they are gone, he will carry his mourning of them, as he's carried Riku's, as both a mass and a miracle in his chest.

They are all soldiers in a warzone. Bound by a blood-pact, like his promise to Saya. Live or die, they are in it together.

 _(What about away from the warzone?)_

That is different. Terra incognita in terrifying contours. Caught in a vacuum of aimlessness, he and Saya could succumb to the treacheries common to most relationships. Lying to each other, manipulating each other, flaws magnifying and forgiveness fading into a scorecard of pettiness.

Love is never equal. There is always someone doing the holding, and someone being held. An equation that is fitting between a Queen and Chevalier.

But partners? They have no idea how to be that for each other.

 _(So why risk it further with children?)_

Haji recognizes he is caught in a rut of rationalizing, and makes himself stop. His cardinal fear—now and always—is losing Saya. To external threats, but also to the narrow edge of despair that still separates him from her. Yet he cannot bridge it, try as he might. Not alone. Only her family can, and they will not remain forever. He and Saya will survive long after their contemporaries are gone.

 _(Is that why she wants children? Is an eternity at your side not worth living?)_

"Great," says Kai. "They're here."

Haji blinks.

The Silversteins are trooping down the concourse, luggage in tow. All of them in utilitarian traveling clothes, their blond hair made brighter by the fluorescent lights, peachy faces tanned by the Okinawan summer. Ezra is talking to Julia about their five-hour stopover in Hong Kong, and the chance of meeting a colleague who can analyze the blood-sample of Saya's attacker. Adam, scrubbing a hand across his face, asks David if he can get a Red Bull from the vending machine. And Dee, on the phone with Red Shield's security detail, is saying, in a crisp voice and distinctly, "Two limos will be plenty."

When Kai catches her eyes, she twinkles. Amazing that her hawk-eyed father and ever-observant mother haven't yet parsed the chemical signals between their daughter and her mentor.

Human beings continue to baffle Haji.

He tunes in, cataloging their surroundings, but also taking a snapshot of the group as a whole, their ordinariness and extraordinariness. Alive and vital now. Yet, like Riku, like Joel, they will eventually be dust.

The knowledge slinks darkly into his thoughts, with _Saya_ and _Babies_ at the periphery. He isn't sure where those thoughts are going, in a direction or in circles, except that they carry with them questions.

Too many questions.

In the next beat, he shakes it off. They have a lugubrious journey ahead. Days of change, challenge, and potential catastrophe.

For Saya, he will face everything head-on.

* * *

 _Next stop: Paris :)_

 _I should warn in advance: the upcoming Travel Arc is gonna be pretty grimdark and disjointed compared to the Okinawa one. Everything will build to a head (catastrophically) toward the end of Act II. Nonetheless, I hope it's enjoyable!_

 _Feedback is yum, so don't forget to share!_


	25. Timepiece

_Wednesday update :)_

 _Picking up where we left off with Saya and the crew. Meanwhile, Tórir is on the move, inching closer toward his ultimate goal. Expect much angst and funeralizing. I've mentioned before, but the chapters in the France et al. arc are pretty heavy on the angst. Just a heads up to let y'all know. This will continue until Saya and Mr. Ginger T's storylines collide, in a pretty explosive way, in the final chapters of Act II._

 _Now on with the fic! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Metal cranes.

The airport runway is crowded with metal cranes. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Tórir watches their fantastic shapes. Bright flashes of red and white lights. Sweeping wings and angular bodies, with tails like the fins of sharks. Except they are larger than sharks. Larger even than whales, their bodies cutting at deafening velocity across the halogen-lit runway, breaking past the barrier of gravity before arrowing into the night sky.

Four o'clock a.m. Matchstick rays of pre-dawn light arc over the horizon. Day unfolding here, night descending elsewhere. A whole world of possibilities, each destination ticking by like on a board at the ticket counter. Tokyo. Beijing. Seoul. Jakarta. Istanbul. Paris. London. Edinburgh.

And Tórshavn. Capital of the Faroe Islands.

 _Home_.

"You need anything Tórir?"

Tórir exhales with irritation. This is the fifteenth time that human—Carsten—has asked him that. Slumped like a dollop of pudding on the barstool at the executive lounge, his eyes keep skittering to Tórir's face. Like he doesn't know whether to drop to his knees in lust or in terror-struck adulation.

It has been that way since Tórir's attack on Jordan's guards. A reaction Tórir was accustomed to in another life, from men and women alike. It served him well during his days as a _blodprinsen_. It will serve him just as well here.

Yet he's forgotten how... tiresome the attention can be.

"I am fine," he says, elegantly clipped.

"Sure you don't want another drink?" Of blood, he means. "It's a long trip from Okinawa to the States."

"I will manage."

A pretty stewardess at the end of the lounge, ripe of form and fruity of scent, keeps giving Tórir the eye over the rim of her martini. Her attractive red uniform is from Cathay Pacific. The airline that Tórir and Carsten will be boarding. Tórir has no doubt, if the journey grinds on interminably, that a sweet assignation can be arranged—with blood taken from her jugular in the form of a love-bite.

There is no need for carnage during the journey.

 _Plenty of time for that afterward._

Afterward, when he has Saya in his sightlines. Their last battle—an impulse of fascination on his part—ended in stalemate. Or, if he is honest, a close shave.

But it gave him what he wanted.

A few dropfuls of her blood, rich as rubies. Not too much. While not as potent as the Blue Queen's blood, her daughters carry strains of the same toxicity that can crystallize a Red Queen's 'Chevalier.' In Tórir's case, it can debilitate him, but not kill him—so long as he doesn't overindulge.

He did not take Saya's blood as indulgence. He took it for knowledge.

Because inside her blood was a knothole of memories. He'd stared at that knothole, a dark blot spiderwebbing into the heart of her, until he fell into it.

Inside was pure chaos. A psyche dragged across space and time, forced to confront barbarity and bloodshed, death and deceit. The world he'd seen, her world, was entrancing. Chilling. Massacres in Vietnam. Manhunts in Russia. Journeys on trains and ships and planes. Foes decimated, friendships lost, family slaughtered. And at the forefront, burning bright as a star, _Diva_.

Diva, the Blue Queen to Saya's Red.

The sister she had killed with her own hands.

Tórir cannot fathom such a feat. Yet the more he turns it over, like a gem between his fingers, each memory a facet caught in the light, the more convinced he becomes of the rightness of his return to this world.

He is here to lure away the little Red Queen from her path down a life of human delusion. To restore her to where she belongs.

On his leash, as the perfect weapon.

And once he has unlocked that hellfire in her, stoked it and unleashed it to his purpose...

Ah, what glory will befall his reign! The deadliest of natural disasters at his beck and call, slaughtering and savaging, while humans heap tributes at his feet for a chance to harness her power. Because here, as anywhere, power is the only language that the living speak, and the only lesson the dead have failed to heed.

Of course, the transfer of power never did run smooth. (Is his mind paraphrasing Shakespeare? Someone he supped from must have unplumbed depths. Saya herself, perhaps?) Patience and planning are required to get where he needs to.

Tórir is undaunted. Patience and planning are two skills he's honed in abundance, though never at the detriment of his adventurous streak.

Like all else, it will serve him well in the months ahead.

"Say, Tórir?"

He comes back to the moment with a blink. "What?"

Carsten pops a handful of sugared pecans into his mouth. "I'm curious. About your powers."

"What about them?"

"Can you… well. Can you really gain knowledge by drinking someone's blood?"

"It is not so simple." Tórir takes a sip of his water. No alcohol for him—then as now. He prefers nothing to soften under his pleasant demeanor the sharp hatreds with which he's so adept at stabbing others. "It is more like a fingerprint. A marker of everything that comprises the other person. Memory, personality, preference."

"And only Chiropter—I mean, only Blodfødt have the gift?"

"Yes. It is strongest among Queens. But their Chevaliers—the _blodprinsen_ —inherit the gift."

"But what's the point of the ability? From a biosocial standpoint, I mean?" Carsten crams another handful of pecans into his mouth. How can he eat that sugary rubbish? His exhalations already carry a fermented tinge that Tórir associates with people developing diabetes. "See, from what you told me, Blodfødt are smart creatures, right? They valued privacy as much as anyone. So why risk exposure with a sip of blood?"

"A strategy of adaptation. Learning a language. Acquiring a skill. Becoming assimilated to a new world." He indicates to himself, a non-verbal _Exhibit A_. "The Blodfødt are shapeshifters. Their defining strategy is to blend in. For Queens, it proves useful after each hibernation. A drink from her _blodprinsen_ would provide the requisites to adjust to a new environment. And by taking knowledge from a human's blood, she would know their languages and beliefs—and insinuate herself accordingly."

"Huh. Sneaky little bitches."

"They are." He offers the beginnings of a thin smile. "Sneaky—and selfish. They care only for themselves, and their realm. And they go to catastrophic lengths to protect it."

"Catastrophic?"

"I once knew a Queen. She butchered an entire village to keep pestilence out of her demesne. Another who strung servants upside-down, dripping their blood into a trough as punishment for treason. Queens were skilled in the arts of warfare—but also more secret subterfuges like poisons. They studied herbs as gateways to religious trances, sexual ecstasy, fighting prowess—and death. Many kept sages, mages and midwives at their disposal, to unlock the lore of nature, and use it to subjugate mankind."

"Whoa. That's. I dunno. Feminazi on Steroids or something."

Tórir does not recognize the reference. No matter. He can google it.

"So... blood-sharing between the Blodfødt," Carsten continues. "Was it a strategy for bonding? Telepathy as an extension of empathy, almost?"

"Somewhat. Between Queens and _blodprinsen_ , it was a pledge of fealty. Strengthening over time. Two hundred years or more would develop the first stirrings of the gift. But most would not master it until at least three centuries or so."

"But you have."

The barest smile. "I have lived longer than three centuries."

Carsten seems on the verge of asking, _So how old are you?_ But the glint in Tórir's eyes makes him think better of it. He resumes chomping on the pecans.

Tórir watches him with veiled distaste. Carsten is clever and useful, but he has the self-control of a pig. It amuses Tórir to consider the man that way: that porcine coat of meat pared down and hung on a hook. Salted. Pickled. Boiled.

He isn't unique among his kind, of course. Most of the humans Tórir sees are the bloblike summation of their time. Short concentration spans. Sugary diets. A naivety born of sedentary ways. They learn their lessons not in sea-voyages or battlefields but from tiny screens. Living, as it were, in a vacuum—until a catastrophe wrenches them out of it.

Tórir will revel in being that _catastrophe_.

"Carsten." It is a bored prompt. "Tell me something."

Carsten jolts to attention. "Yeah?"

"The 'access agent' our financiers spoke of. He was a prisoner?"

"Once. Initially he was held at the ICC's detention center in the Hague. After they gave him a thirty-year sentence, he was sent to France to serve it out." Carsten swallows a gulpful of beer. It gives his breath an unsavory, piss-like whiff. "He's spent time in La Santé. Fifteen years—not the full thirty. Turns out he had friends in high places. A few of them pulled strings to get him good legal representation."

"Hm."

"After his release, he started a Biopharma company in Las Vegas. Silver Corp, they're called. They have a respectable board-of-directors. A photogenic female CEO. FDA approval. Everything's legit. But our contact is the real string-puller. He works as a shadow partner. Doing business with global clients, as a way to circumvent regulatory bodies. IBM-UAWA have tapped into his services in the past—mostly for clinical trials."

"And he was a student of your mentor?"

"A long time ago. But they still keep in touch. We could use him. He's got the smarts—and experience—we need to finalize our project."

"Hmm." Tórir mulls this over a languid sip of water. Then: "Our lookouts. They said we have clearance for a few weeks, yes? While Red Shield is in disrepair."

"Yeah. Their leader, Joel Goldschmidt, just died of heart trouble. With him out of commission, the organization will be too distracted to keep all eyes open. At least 'till they get a replacement."

"And Saya and her family. They will stay overseas."

"Yeah. A few days, at least. Maybe longer. Our agents will let us know."

"Hm."

Tórir tucks away this piece of information with mild interest. Travel leaves the prey vulnerable.

And movement, the precursor of opportunity, is all he needs.

* * *

"Saya?"

The cool flirt of fingertips.

"Sayaaaa? Wakey, wakey."

"Mmm."

Her eyes flutter open. Pale light is all around, suffusing her with a skin-tingling warmth. She feels in a place outside of time—yet right where she belongs.

Her bedroom, at the villa. Blue daylight pours in through the stained-glass windows. Blue roses are clustered around the wooden frame.

 _Home._

 _I'm home?_

Home, but not alone. She is tucked up in bed with someone, snug as two babies in a cradle.

In the glow, Diva's face hovers close, smiling down at her, her long hair dangling to brush her skin.

"Wake _up_ , lazy bones," she says. "It's almost noon."

 _Dream_ , Saya thinks. _I'm dreaming._

Except it never helps to know that she is. Sitting up and yawning, her face caught in a perfect reflection of Diva's, their bodies effortlessly mirroring each other, the _rightness_ of the moment settles in. Reality never feels as perfect as dreams. It never hurts so piercingly.

" _Finally_!" Diva bounces in bed, vibrating with excess energy. "You _promised_ to wake up early! We were gonna go shopping with Sayumi and Sayuri!"

"Shopping…?"

"For the baby shower!" The trademark little-sister eyeroll. "Don't tell me you _forgot_!?"

"What?" A baby shower? For whom? "I-I didn't think it was today."

" _Duh_! When else?" Diva gives her the stink-eye. "You didn't oversleep because of _Haji_ , did you?"

"Um…"

Saya's face heats to a ferocious pink. Diva lets off an _Ah-ha!_ and dissolves into laughter.

Saya blinks. The uncanniness of the scene keeps reshaping, moment by moment. She's heard that spilled-champagne laughter before. The sound has always made badness flare inside her. Memories of blood and fire and filth.

This is different. Diva is the same, her flighty personality intact. But everything else is changed. Her white dress isn't an Ophelia-esque shroud but a stylish little frock, Issey Miyake maybe. She also has dangly teardrop earrings and a tiny diamond wristwatch, and her complexion, still a few shades paler than Saya's, is nonetheless toasty. Tropical-tan.

Stranger still is the sweetness shining off her. Both of them sitting up in bed, knees touching and their heads close enough that their long hair tangles like spiderwebs, a frozen moment whose surrealism should be paralyzing.

It isn't.

It is no stranger than the affection welling inside Saya. Or the eight-month baby bump stretching her pajama top. Its warm weight, like Diva's presence, is an anchor.

Saya touches her sister's hand, and smiles. "I'm sorry I overslept. Really. The shopping slipped my mind."

Diva shakes her head. "I forgive you. You're just making up for lost time with Haji, right? When is he flying out on tour? Next week?"

"Mm." Sadness is a brief downtug at Saya's mouth. She shakes it off. "I'll be fine. Plenty to keep me busy. Between decorating the nursery and college classes and helping Kai at Omoro…"

" _And_ you promised to cheer me on at my next concert," Diva reminds her.

"I did." Then, mock-scolding: "But _this_ time, I refuse to sit in the back row. Your fans nearly mobbed me!"

Diva pouts. "It's not _my_ fault we look alike!"

"It _is_ your fault for putting me in the nosebleed section."

"That was Nathan's idea! He said the acoustics were better!"

"My ears are _fine!_ "

"You coulda fooled me," Diva grumbles. "I've been trying to wake you for the past _hour_." A sly little moue. "I'm not sure if I should kick Haji—or ask for pointers."

Saya laughs. "I'll be sure to tell _Solomon_ that."

" _Do_ ," Diva huffs. "And while you're at it, tell him he's a woogie, wriggly worm. Promising to be there for my birthday, then slinking off to Monte Carlo to gamble the night away with flunkies and floozies a-a-and carry out other F-related acts of wrongness!"

"Oh, Diva. It's not his fault the flight was delayed."

"Well: _hello_! He's got wings of his own. He could've flown here!"

"Monaco to Okinawa? For seventeen hours straight?' Saya quirks a brow. "Your birthday would be over by the time he arrived. If he didn't drop from heat-exhaustion somewhere in China."

"It's the _principle_ of the thing!" Diva's petulance conceals the hurt beneath. "He never drops everything at a moment's notice and swoops in to see me. Not like Haji does with you!"

"Oh Diva…" Saya softens with sympathy. "That's not true. He cares about you very much."

"I care about him too! What I _don't_ do is make a lifestyle out of hiding behind fabricated business meetings or furniture!"

Saya lets off a sigh. "Commitment can be scary. Some men rise to the occasion. Others need time to process it—"

"Under a _table_?!"

"Better than a guillotine."

"Don't tempt me," Diva mutters. "If he skips out on our engagement party—"

"If he does, he'll face in-law hell of the highest order," Saya says.

She's very fond of Solomon. But his stormy relationship with Diva, defined by passionate patching-ups and fickle fallouts, needs to be addressed. She and Haji don't mind keeping Diva at the villa during their temporary separations, plying her with tissue papers and hugs and retail-therapy. But her twin deserves better—especially after the fiasco with Amshel, that suitor-turned-Svengali.

 _Bastard_ , Saya thinks, and the clarity of rage merges her two selves, reality and dream, into one.

Gently, she strokes the loose fall of Diva's hair. "Let's not worry about Chevaliers right now. Have you had breakfast?"

"No." Diva doles out a _Pity Me_ pout. "I was waiting for you to get up."

Sticky with big-sister guilt, Saya shoos her out and showers on record speed. They rejoin in the sunlit kitchen, eggs frying and tea percolating, moving around each other with the same dancelike grace as when they'd fought at the Met a lifetime ago. Their communication flows and eddies—plans for the day, gossipy tidbits, international politics, the latest Marvel movie. The room's emotional acoustic is mellow with a sisterly cheer that at any other time would make Saya wonder if she's had an aneurism, or ingested a peyote, or otherwise fallen off the end of the universe and into an alternate dimension.

The Land of Soap Opera Saccharine, a parallel universe to the bitter black coffee of Real Life.

Yet, as she and Diva sit at the kitchen island, tea steaming above and feet dangling below, Saya smiles. The morning savors of the ordinary. Diva's company, like the hugeness of her belly, eases within her every lost molecule of longing, every spilled tear and empty silence, that she's never dared to put into words.

"…I was thinking, after the babies are born, we could head to Iriomote Island, with Sayumi and Sayuri," Diva says. "Just us girls. I took scuba diving lessons last year. We could explore the coral reef together. Pet all those colorful fishies. Solomon's promised to take me to the Great Barrier Reef for the honeymoon. I performed at the Sydney Opera House last year, but I never…"

Saya's smile widens. Everything about Diva, from the benign blueness of her eyes to the gloss of her mirth-rounded cheeks, is adorable and evokes love. And yet Saya finds herself searching her twin's face, as if scanning for some difference: a mole, a scar, an irregular line, that will make the scene transform, so the perfection of the morning is reduced to an illusion.

She doesn't trust the pure luster of her happiness. Not without it coexisting, hour by hour, with darker shades of loss.

"…Ray Lawler's _Doll Trilogy_ …" Diva chirps, "…Witchetty grubs and Barramundi afterward… Better than it looks, if you're hungry…"

A wave of cold uncertainty seeps into Saya. The cheerful kitchen darkens. The shafts of sunlight break into misshapen splotches, like a jigsaw puzzle falling apart. Her head pounds, inky shapes and menacing sensations gathering force in her brain, so the very air of the room descends into a chill.

"…white chocolate truffles…" Diva is saying, "…red velvet cake… red stains… old blood… rotting bodies…"

The music of Diva's voice has gone deathly soft. The words pour from her like snakes, heavy and cold, the consonants curving with the sheen of scales. Then it is an actual snake, sliding out from the red loop of her mouth. It slithers down Diva's chin, its eyes unslitting, liquid blue.

"Vietnam... Russia... Paris... and the moon goes red... and the pain eats you alive..."

Saya stares at the snake, tranced by the infernal familiarity of it. Red mist is massing at the corners of her eyes. Inside her, the barrier of credulity starts to collapse.

She fights to preserve it—she doesn't want the dream to end. Doesn't want to be parted from this mirage of happiness, where her intimacy with Diva is everlasting.

But it's too late.

Diva's voice has dropped to alien wavelengths—a pitch of decibels the living could never speak. Her skin moves, the bones beneath flattening, her eyes shrinking. Saya watches her twin's features erode as if beneath a dusting of quicklime. Left behind is an unformed shape, its surface fracturing into cobweb cracks.

From the dark orifice of the mouth, the snake uncoils to its full length, rising eerily.

 _"Saya."_ It is a sizzle, blood on brimstone. " _Wake up, Saya."_

The colors of the room are inverting. Black and white transposing into red. The tiles are speckled with it, blood dripping from between Saya's thighs in wet splats. Her big belly deflates into an expanse of curdled blood, sloshing around her like a nacre around a rusting nail.

"No," Saya croaks, hot blood rising to lap at her chest, her throat, her chin. " _No_."

 _"Wake up, Saya."_

"No. Please, no—"

The blood pours into her mouth, words gurgling into panic, and—

* * *

" _Saya_."

She lurches awake. Her hair is glued to her skin with sweat. Haji's fingertips are cool on her cheek, his face close to hers. The taste in her mouth isn't blood, but bile.

Sucking in a breath, Saya glances around. She is on the private jet. The lights are low, the passengers asleep. The windows show a pre-dawn sky. A circle of dark, a hazy pink streak of horizon, a circle of light.

"Saya." Haji kneels beside her, laying a cool hand on her forehead. "Are you all right?"

"I—"

The words stall as she speeds to outrace her thoughts. The dream has faded beyond recall. Not the eerie portent of her usual conversations with Diva. This was no more than reheated leftovers from her psyche. Yet the clamminess of blood remains.

She fumbles with her seatbelt. "I need the bathroom."

Wordlessly, Haji helps her to her feet. She glances at him, half-expecting to see a glaze of weariness in his eyes. Weariness with her madness, her moodiness, and the misadventures she drags along in her wake.

 _Stop it._

Now isn't the time for her stupid emotions to run wild. Better to concentrate on Joel's funeral, and on the potential threat brewing.

Yet her heart skips and relaxes when Haji cups the knob of her elbow. In the rosy dawn spreading bittersweetly through the cabin, he regards her with a clear-eyed calm. The budding sunlight catches in his eyelashes, the scarred jut of cheekbone and brow. A face changed by time, yet familiar as the map of home.

 _Mine, mine, mine._

He guides her towards the narrow toilet cubicle, opening the door without sound. She gives him another quick glance, then shuts herself in.

The bathroom is claustrophobically tiny. Sink, toilet, changing table, all lit by a wan light. Saya knows she is going to vomit even before the acidic stuff spews up her mouth to splatter the basin. Rinsing off, she splashes her face with water, and drinks some between her cupped palms. She thinks of Joel, and their last phone conversation.

 _"Hopefully …we can take a turn through the Zoo's grounds together."_

It is too late now.

The tears come unstoppably. She waits until they subside, before dabbing her face dry. Her emotions are unmoored: sad one moment, frozen-up the next. Not all of it has to do with Joel's death. The strangeness has been coalescing inside her since the Awakening.

Madness—possession?—doesn't explain everything.

When she reemerges from the toilet, Haji is leaning by the bulkhead, arms folded. "All right?"

She nods, not meeting his eyes.

"Are you hungry? There are sandwiches in the back."

"I'm fine."

For once, the emptiness in her belly isn't hunger, but restlessness. When Haji gestures to their seat, she shakes her head. She yearns for exercise. But short of cartwheeling down the aisle and putting a foot through the cockpit door, there is nothing she can do.

Instead, she regards the sleeping passengers.

In the expansive leather seats, they seem under a somnolent spell. David and Julia, looking like a married-couple from an old 50s movie, are stretched out in their lie-flat beds: David on his back, with his hands folded across his chest; Julia half-sitting up with a book in her lap, its spine cracked, her glasses and David's wristwatch on the small table between them. Dee, Ezra and Adam are huddled in the three-seater opposite to them, wheat-colored heads lolling at awkward angles, the low lighting reducing their faces to innocent snubness.

On the table beyond, Kai snoozes. A neck-cushion serves as a pillow for his cheek; his brow is nestled on one muscular forearm, the fingers loosely curled into a fist. From this angle, he looks seventeen again. The ace pitcher at high-school, with the brash mouth and mean right-hook, who'd followed his little sister halfway around the world to keep her safe.

Sayumi and Sayuri doze on either side of him. Sayumi, half-kitten, half-child, despite her sultry Delilah curls and chipped red nail polish, is curled into a ball under her blanket, little paws folded against her chin. Yuri, daintily demure even in sleep, has both hands in her lap, knees crossed at the ankles in a Duchess Slant.

Their Chevaliers are wide-awake, but motionless. Sachi, with his shoes doffed and plugs in his ears, sits cross-legged in the seat in the way that only a compact gymnast can achieve. He is industriously working on a book of crossword puzzles. Beside him, V headbangs to rock-and-roll on his headphones, drumming out a subdued fanfare on his kneecaps.

The scene, heavy with familial repose, restores Saya to normality.

 _I'm with my family._

 _I'm safe_.

Whatever the downpour of strangeness and tragedy, it is always a relief.

She rests against the wall opposite to Haji. "How long until we arrive?"

"A few minutes. Red Shield has a small entourage stationed to greet us at the airport."

"And the funeral?"

"It will be held tomorrow morning. Afterward, there will be a meeting with the seconds-in-command."

"To discuss succession." She plucks restlessly at the hem of her blouse. "I wonder who it will be. Franz—Joel's eldest—he's next in line, isn't he?"

"He has stated that he is uninterested."

She bites her lip. "So that leaves Joel's next choice. His cousin, August. Have you met him?"

"No. From what I hear, he is clever. But he has also been divorced from Red Shield for several years."

"Well, hopefully he remembers his duty as a Shield. Joel asked me to support him if—" She stops, a spasm of grief closing off the words.

"Saya."

Haji's fingers twine through hers. He draws her into the bridged clasp of their bodies.

This time, unlike at Omoro, she lets herself be held. Lets him smooth her hair back from her forehead, and drop a kiss there. A waft of his scent—soap, rosin, the musky cloak from hours of travel—suffuses her lungs. She draws in a slow breath of it. Wishing they were together on the cool raft of a bed, floating away from their troubles.

Wishing, too, that there were no troubles at all, and that she'd stayed with Haji in Okinawa, going on having herself a little honeymoon. A chance to focus on nothing except romps along the beach and waking to drifts of cello notes and the enticing aroma of coffee and the butterflied coolness of Haji's kisses.

Reality has already encroached on her illusion. Exposing its impossibility.

"I can hear you thinking," Haji whispers.

Saya manages a smile. His insights always glance too close to the surface; an accuracy as disconcerting as it is comforting. "A terrible habit for a woman. Isn't that what Joel used to say?"

"Our Joel or the last?"

"Ours." Her smile fades. "The last... was nothing like that."

"He was a good man."

"Maybe that's why he died young."

Haji's eyes are ineffably gentle. "If survival were a purity test, Saya, most of us would be gone."

"Including me?"

"I will not think of that." His forehead warms itself against hers. "I hope you do not, either."

"I try not to. Just—" Her chest constricts. "I think of the normal life Joel could've had. Not just him. Everyone. They're all wrapped up in the Mission because of my mistakes. If things were different—"

"Sssh."

Haji encompasses her closer. Goosebumps form on her nape where he strokes it. His fingers, for all their chill, are gentle with intimacy. It is like being by herself only better, the skies of her mind clearing and the world dropping away: a high-jump, a hope-spot.

A glass half-full.

"Why is it…" she whispers.

"Hm?"

"Why is this the only thing that calms me?"

"I am glad something does," he says simply.

The words pass through her on a gust of gratitude. There it is again. The sense that he is rightfully hers, even in a life where nothing comes without a price. Looking back on the war, she remembers her bedrock solitude, as if he'd never been by her side at all. But other times, especially after the Met bombing, she'd look at her circle of comrades, and realize it was just a barely-legal brother, a no-nonsense handler, a glamorous glass mannequin of a doctor, an ex-CIA op with an appetite for apple-pie, an orphaned little Schiff girl, and Haji would fill her thoughts completely, a dark outline of familiarity and a whisper before a firestorm: _I love you._

In those moments, she understands that they were never apart in the war. They were _Together_ like the sea and the sky are together, a natural seamlessness that nothing can separate.

In her ear, Diva says, _But is it enough?_

Saya flinches.

"Still thinking," Haji whispers.

She forces a smile. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"I wish I could've come to you a little less …cracked."

Haji folds her closer, and her ear is kissed by the coolness of his lips. "Cracks can heal."

"What if they don't?"

"I would not begrudge them." He gestures to the scarred solemnity of his face. "You have never begrudged mine."

Tears blur Saya's eyes. It takes a handful of breaths to gather herself. "S-Subject change."

"All right."

"The scouts in Okinawa. Have they found any trace of that Chevalier?"

"Not yet. They will send us a report once we've landed."

She nods. For a moment, she sees again the glowing blue eyes and the shape of one huge fist, exploding pain through her sinews like an atom bomb.

 _"We have not finished, but barely begun."_

Who _was_ that monster? What did he want with her?

And why did she feel no alarm at the thought of him, but inevitability?

"Saya?"

"Hm?"

Haji's expression sits carefully-composed. But a disquiet deepens the hollows of his eyes. "I had hoped we could talk. Not just about the Chevalier. Before that. About what Nathan told you."

She blinks. In the haste of their departure, she'd nearly forgotten.

"Saya, you should let Julia examine that tincture. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Nathan is misleading you. There is no way—"

And just like that, the residual anger bubbles up.

"Is that what you think? Or what you hope _I'll_ think?"

He flinches, but doesn't fold. "There is no rational reason for Nathan to—"

She jerks out of his arms. "What if it's true? It would be a wasted chance if we let it slip away."

"A wasted chance. Or a foolish mistake. Saya, in light of everything, it is unwise to—"

"If this is more arguments ending with how I don't _know my own mind_ , and need to be _handled with care_ , I don't want to hear it."

"Please do not put words in my mouth." He lets off a muted sigh. "It is true you have not been yourself of late. But whatever is… unsettled… inside you, children will not remedy it."

"So you're psychic now?" Anger make a tremble of her voice. She isn't sure whether _this_ metaphoric glass is half-full or half-empty. But she knows that with Haji's every refusal, it is cracking. She feels the agony of each crack, a fistful of shards welling blood, and conceals it beneath the ire that comes from long practice. "Or are you just too cowardly to take the risk?"

"It is the risk to _you_ that concerns me." The earnest pleading of his stare half-blinds her. "Saya, I am not dismissing the idea in its entirety. I am simply asking you to postpone it. Until a better time."

"Is there _ever_ a better time?!"

"Saya—"

" _Please_. If this means anything to you at all, you would understand _we'd_ be better for it. _I_ would."

She hopes the plea will bribe him into acceptance. Except she knows him, and she knows his stubbornness isn't without cause. He is a pragmatist, a survivor, a self-protective sentinel who never takes unnecessary risks.

Their history is already rife with risk. Even with the boon of thirty years, children can't negate over a century of warfare. It can't erase the double-spiral of trauma and self-sacrifice they've trapped each other inside. They need time, patience, peace. They need stability after the nightly whipsawings between vitriol and violence. They need to learn how to live together. How to _love_ , not as fighters but as equals.

She understands all this.

And yet nine-tenths of her just … _wants_.

Silence stretches between them, submerged with the conflicts in their bodies, and the harsh dialogue of their eyes. Stalemate. Standoff.

Then something in Haji's expression shifts. Not surrender, exactly, but a softening.

"Saya," he begins. "I—"

Above, the seatbelt sign comes on. The pilot announces that they are beginning their descent to the Roissy Airport.

 _Paris_.

* * *

L'église de la Madeleine,

75008 Paris, France

Saya's memory of Paris is bittersweet-verging-on-bitter.

She remembers the way the rays of predawn sunlight struck the skyline, illuminating the splendid stretch of gabled roofs, spires, and domes in centuries' worth of history: Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Classic. She remembers the glass pyramid of the Louvre, the brooding hulk of Notre Dame, the quintessentially quaint rows of the Left Bank cafes.

And she remembers other things. The shabby flat Red Shield had rented near la Goutte d'Or. The Schiff's ambush. Irene spasming to death with screams. The shopping trip with Kai and Riku. The attack on Red Shield's ship—the one that had cost Joel his legs. Cost them their headquarters, cost Riku his life, and the lives of countless others.

That day, something had shattered their world, a percussive storm that shook its very foundations. And in a spiraling rush, they were swept apart, their minds and bodies scarred and changed in the aftermath.

 _But still alive,_ she thinks.

 _Scarred, changed—we're still here._

That was why they'd fought so hard. That was why Joel, even robbed of his mobility, never gave up on the Mission.

They drive down together in Red Shield's town car. Saya sits between Yuri and Yumi in the enclosed silence of the backseat. Headache throbs in her brainstem; she drags in deep lungfuls of air through the half-rolled windows.

It is a damp, cool morning. Last night had wrung out rainfall: the sky is blanketed in gray-edged clouds, the sun barely visible. The city seems to hang suspended between dreams.

Awkwardly, Saya shifts in her seat. She has borrowed one of Yuri's outfits for the ceremony—a Mary Quant-style shift, with seamed stockings and pointed-toe heels. She hates the ensemble: too modish, too starched. But at least it is in black.

"Thank you," she whispers to Yuri. "I should've gotten something from a store. But the idea of shopping…"

"Don't worry about it." Yuri squeezes her hand. "At times like this, the little details always trip you up."

"I dunno why it matters," Yumi says. "I'm sure Joel-san saw her in _worse_ during the war."

"This isn't a war," Yuri says gently. "It's his farewell."

Yumi frowns in belated understanding.

The service is held at the church of La Madeleine. Through the car window, the tall building makes a doleful ascent into view. Neo-Classically splendid with Corinthian columns, it nonetheless shows in daylight the erosion of decades, its grand design crumbling into ruin.

The rest of the mourners have already arrived. Clumps of darkly-clothed men and women make their way slowly up the stairs. Joel's family and friends—and their security details. Joel was a shrewd networker: his social circle ran the gamut from businessmen, civil servants and war-heroes, to politicians, intelligence agents and arms dealers. Each person peripherally involved in Red Shield's day-to-day operations, kept in the loop about the Chiropteran threat.

 _What will happen without him?_ Saya wonders. _Will they keep supporting Red Shield?_

The expedient self-absorption makes her cringe. Sometimes she thinks there were advantages to simply being a monster-slayer for an organization. It kept your thoughts on matters not to do with the organization at all.

Once they are parked, Haji hands her out, courteous as a chauffeur. As soon as she's on her feet, Saya retracts her hand with the same formality.

After their talk on the plane, she doesn't want to touch him. Yet the subdued concern in his face takes the edge off her anger. Whatever their differences, he is always soldier-on-his-post steady when it comes to her well-being. Always keeping his priorities on the straight-and-narrow.

On her.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"Mmm."

"David says we will convene at _Les Ambassadeurs_ afterward. To discuss the teams' findings in Okinawa. And the results of the blood sample."

"I see."

He hesitates. "Are you certain you are fine? You seem very pale."

"Headache."

"Would you prefer to—"

"I'm okay." She squares her shoulders. "Let's go."

Inside, the church is jam-packed. Joel's mahogany casket is unadorned except for elegant wreaths of lilies. Next to it is a large framed photo. Joel in his last years: dignified and handsome, the sideburns silvered but the hair still full and dark. His blue eyes seem to twinkle into Saya's.

Wincing, Saya looks away. She feels her own smallness in the high-ceilinged church. The rosette motifs and wafts of incense from the thuribles stir up half-buried memories of another funeral, after the Bordeaux Sunday.

It was just her and Haji then. Yet the atmosphere is uncannily alike. She looks around at the faces of the mourners, but because of the gloom, and the starkness of the wide-spaced chandeliers, all she can see is a black-washed mass with glints of eyes. It is eerie.

Then Haji's hand covers hers. Their fingers fold together. He squeezes gently, and something inside Saya teeters between winter and the first green peep of spring.

Inhaling, she finds the strength to look ahead.

The memorial service is deeply unreal. The Goldschmidt clan, carefully secular since Saya's days at the Zoo, have always eschewed religion. But Joel's wife is a staunch Catholic. There is a Requiem Mass, and an _Absoute_ with incense and holy water, hymns sung and eulogies spoken, all with a sense of reluctant obligation.

At Saya's left, David mutters, "He'd hate this."

"Hate it?"

"The formality. The fuss." His face is a study of strained neutrality. "The chief always said that when his time came, we should skip the ritualizing. Give him a low-key sendoff, then focus on what matters."

"The Mission," Saya whispers.

"Yes." His eyes meet hers, their sharp gleam undimmed despite the shadows under his eyelids. "Red Shield may or may not survive the coming weeks, Saya. But our purpose remains the same. We're here to help you."

"You think there's danger brewing."

"My gut says yes."

"So does mine." She swallows. "We've survived worse. But with Joel gone, it feels like—a countdown's begun. Like there's some limit of fortitude we've reached."

"Nothing lasts forever," David says. "And nothing stays the same. Not the way we fight. Or the way we cope. Sometimes we're more resilient when touched by crisis. Other times it's like reaching a mental threshold. The end of a hard journey." Determination shades his gaze. "That just means the start of another. At every point, we're becoming stronger."

 _Becoming._

A shiver passes through Saya. David's words are a bitter pill to be swallowed, but they are a good and restorative bitter. A fact of life. He doesn't have Haji's patient perception into what makes her tick—who does?—but his pragmatism always conceals beneath a well-meaning insight.

She values it, as she values his presence. One of the many anchors, like Haji, like Kai, like Julia, who keep her grounded.

"I hope we survive this new 'journey'," she says. "It will be hard without Joel."

"But impossible without you," David says, and the corner of his mouth twitches in an almost-smile.

Saya offers a wan smile in return. It is the closest all that day she comes to weeping.

After the service, there is a slow procession of cars to Père Lachaise Cemetery. The place is airy and tranquil, weak sunlight ghosting off the trees. The grave is waiting, a rectangular hole in the grass, the tombstone perfectly-etched with a simple epitaph.

 __ Goldschmidt VI_

 _His works were fortitude, his deeds were love._

Yumi and Yuri, flanking Saya, squeeze her shoulders as the priest begins the Rite of Committal. Joel's widow and three children stand off to the side. Saya remembers their names from the phonecall with Joel. Franz, the eldest, a replica of Joel but with sunken eyes and stubbled cheeks. Emile and Alice, Joel's two daughters, pretty as water-paintings. And Célia, Joel's wife—attractively patrician and absolutely devasted.

She sobs all through the priest's verses of scripture, breathing with hitching gasps into her handkerchief. When they lower the coffin into the earth, she breaks into a wail, and the sound of it echoes off the treetops and grave-markers. Franz and her daughters shush her, but nothing helps. Her grief is inconsolable.

Not grief.

 _Rage_.

"Twenty-five years!" she shrieks, cutting off the priest. "Twenty-five years of happiness, and he threw it away for a life of _Hell_."

"Madame," the priest winces. "Please—"

She breaks away from her children, sinking to her knees at the gravesite. "Twenty-five years and I'm left with _nothing_ of him!"

"Maman—" Franz hurries forward, grabbing her shoulders. "Please don't do this!"

"There's nothing left! They took everything! His entire life! All those _monsters_ claiming to fight monsters in turn!"

"Maman, _no_ —!"

She jerks off her son's hands. Her eyes dart around, the whites showing like a spooked animal's. Then they alight on Saya, and the misery spasms into wrath. " _You_!"

She rises clumsily, warding off Franz's attempts, and flings herself at Saya. Haji and David catch at her simultaneously. Around them, the mourners whisper and stare.

"You began this!" Célia snarls. "You're the reason it all started! He always put you on a damned pedestal! Jeanne d'Arc with a bloodstained sword!"

"Please, that's _enough_!" Franz encircles her waist. "You promised you wouldn't make a scene. Think of what father would say—"

"It's thanks to _her_ that he can say nothing at all!" Her mouth curdles, eyes blazing into Saya's. "It's all because of _you_! Always the Mission! Always Red Shield! It consumed his entire life! There was room for nothing else!"

"Madame—" Saya's heart races. Her face is hot with shame.

"So many men hollowed out in your service," Célia sobs. "So many fighters fallen for your cause. Yet you've saved more than you've killed. That's the worst of all! I must be thankful to my husband's own _murderer_!"

" _Mama_!"

"I'm sorry," Saya whispers. "I didn't mean to cause you harm—"

"You _have_ harmed me." Fury pours off Célia and into the washed-out cemetery. "You have hurt my family. My children and my husband. Even if he never breathed a word of complaint, your actions have always harmed him."

Saya opens her mouth, then closes it. In the face of the other woman's despair, there is nothing she can say.

"Please, Mama." Franz draws her back. Emile and Alice come forward, taking her by either arm, murmuring soothingly as they guide her away. Celia's shoulders shake, her rage burnt out and leaving her collapsed into sobs. If not for her daughters propping her up, she'd fall to the ground.

The priest hurriedly finishes the prayers. The rite concludes with those gathered reciting the _Notre Père._ Saya mouths the words by rote. Her heart buzzes and her skin burns: sorrow shot through with remorse. Maybe it was wrong of her to come here? Wrong to intrude on the privacy of Joel's family, her very presence stirring up decades of disaster.

Célia's accusations... she knows them too well. Joel, Riku, George, Elizaveta, Miss Clara, hundreds of others—they would all be alive, except for the truth of them.

Then Yumi butts up against her, gently supportive without words. On her other side, Yuri passes an arm around her, squeezing tight. Swallowing, Saya glances from one girl to the other, showing gratitude with just her eyes.

Her nieces... they wouldn't exist either, but for the fact of the war.

When the ceremony is over, the mourners disperse. Two graveyard workers with a backhoe begin filling in the grave, large clods of dirt landing with hollow thuds. As Saya and her family start to leave, she takes one last look at the grave. Célia stands there, clinging to both her daughters. Their weeping is different now, the mutual consolement between parent and child. Franz stands a few feet off, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes.

When he spots Saya, he hesitates, then starts over to her.

She stiffens, expecting another outburst. But when the young man draws near, his tear-streaked face shows chagrin.

"Miss Otonashi," he says, clasping her hands. "Thank you for coming all this way. I hope you can forgive that display—"

Saya shakes her head. "Your mother has every right to—"

"No. We are all fighters in the Mission. But you are foremost. For her to insult you that way—" His young face droops. But he holds his shoulders high. "Please understand. My mother loved my father very much. Worshiped him, really. But she was not a Shield. She and father had problems because she could never make peace with his dedication to the Mission. She would become jealous. Frightened. It was always a point of conflict between them." Quieter, "It's not the sort of life I want for myself."

The message sinks in, whether he intends it to or not.

Saya winces inwardly. A cool wind gusts through the cemetery, slinking along the hem of her dress and curling down her collar. The air is moist with impending rain.

Franz unclasps her hands. Digging into his suit jacket, he lifts out a familiar pocket-watch. The feeble sunlight strikes dull gold splotches off its surface.

"My father's," Franz says. "And his father's before him. The heirloom passed down from generation to generation, alongside the mantel of Joel."

Saya stares at the watch. The rustling of the trees, the indistinct murmur of voices, the twittering of birds, all narrow down to just the soft patina of its surface.

Taking her hand, Franz gently drops the watch into her palm.

"Please," he says. "Pass this on to the next man brave enough to fill my father's shoes."

"Not to you?"

He shakes his head. "Father did his best to keep Red Shield strong. But it was his private life that suffered for it. I never held it against him—he was always good to me. He taught me a great deal. But I cannot use his lessons for warfare. I have no stomach for it." He glances toward the gravesite, where his mother and sisters are huddled. "I can, however, use those lessons to take care of my family."

"Monsieur…"

He backs away, shaking his head. "We all have our duty, Miss Otonashi. This is mine. I hope you will understand." Quietly, "We must learn from the past. Do our part, and do it better."

The words aren't a nod to conventionality, but a reaffirmation of purpose.

His, but also hers.

They say their goodbyes. Franz returns to his mother and sisters. They embrace him, sobbing. A family broken apart by grief—yet still together where it counts.

In her hand, Joel's timepiece is cool and heavy. Her crimes and Diva's seem to mass themselves in its weight, and she can find no sense in them. They are awful, and brutal, and meaningless—a natural disaster too inscrutable to fathom.

A reminder to do better.

The first raindrop brings her back to the moment. A fat droplet bounces off her nose. It is followed by a another, then another. And then the preliminary pitterpatter gives way to downpour, like a soup-pot upended. Everyone in the cemetery is instantly drenched.

Shoving the watch into her handbag, Saya takes off toward the gates. Haji is waiting there. The intent grimness of his face is unreadable. But beneath are all the contradictions that make him hers: wariness, concern, stubbornness, patience. A landmark lost and then found again.

On impulse, Saya catches his hand. He curls their fingers together, squeezing the way he'd done in the church. It is her one consolation of the day. Not a glass half-full, but a fragile lure of hope to cling to.

Like Joel's timepiece.

Like the weight of the vial in her pocket.

* * *

 _Saya's weirdass dream is based at least in part on Tuli Azzameen's The Other Self. Give her stuff (Blood+ and Star Wars) a read if you're so inclined. I promise you'll be in for a treat._


	26. Possibility

_Early posting, since I'll be fairly busy in the next few weeks. Continuing the Sad Saga of Saya & Co. as they grapple with the aftermath of Joel's death, and Red Shield's tenuous future. Lots more shenanigans with Chiropteran-biology too, so do let me know how bizarre or believable it turns out. _

_Review, pretty please! :)_

* * *

 _Les Ambassadeurs_ is a Rococo jewelry box.

A favorite of Red Shield's upper-echelon, it is decorated in gold-and-marble inlay, filigreed mirrors, crystal chandeliers, and tables and chairs in whipped creams and chocolate browns. The high ceiling is done in the _trompe l'oeil_ fashion, with a fresco of cloudy blue sky that is reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel.

The entire place has been booked out for the meeting; the only extras in the room are the discreet waitstaff.

And a familiar face or two.

" _Sayaaaaaa_!"

Stepping into the elegant bar lounge, Saya hears a happy squeal. Then a blur of black-and-purple _slams_ into her. Catching the newcomer's shoulders, Saya goggles.

"Lulu!?"

The little Schiff looks older than the photo on David's cellphone. Taller too; she and Saya are about the same height. She is bundled in an oversized black jersey-dress, its long sleeves reaching to her fingertips. Her purple hair is in girlish pigtails with colorful seashells woven through the strands. Her cheeks and nose are splotched pink. Wherever she was recently, she's gotten sunburned.

Which beats getting flambéed.

" _God_ ," Saya breathes. "You're all grown up."

Lulu wrinkles her nose. "I haven't _grown_ in the last twenty years."

"Not _that_ way. But—you know."

"I guess so." She tosses her pigtails, her smile irrepressible. " _You_ haven't changed at all. You look just like before. When we had that party at Omoro, remember?"

A soft nostalgia feathers through Saya. "I can't believe it's been that long."

"You missed out on a lot!" Lulu declares. "Missions! Traveling! Birthdays!" Meaningfully, "December thirtieth."

"Huh?"

"That's _my_ birthday! We didn't celebrate birthdays in Kilbed. But after Lewis adopted me, he said I should pick one. A happy occasion."

"So… what's so special about December thirtieth?"

Lulu beams. "That's when Julia found a cure for the Thorn. And I walked in sunlight for the first time!"

Saya smiles with wistful affection. "I'm so glad for you." She touches the younger girl's hair. "You've obviously been spending time in sunshiny places."

"Uh-huh! Lewis took me to Port Royal to see his sisters. I played at the beach with their grandkids. They showed me a bunch of ways to do my hair." She swooshes the seashells playfully back and forth. "We'll probably visit again after our next job."

"Job?"

"Mm-hm. It's top secret. This private Shanghai firm is paying us to—"

"It's not top secret if you spill it to everyone, is it Lulu?"

The mellowly-accented voice booms across the room. Saya turns—and smiles. Lewis' massive bulk continues to be a mind-blowing contrast to his stealth. Up close, he hasn't changed much. Still in his trademark Lennon shades, still big and bald and boisterous—and still sharp as a tack.

"Go on now." He nudges the Schiff girl with a gentle hand. "Order your _chocolat chaud._ The meeting will get started soon."

"Ooh! I almost forgot!"

With a bounce of excitement, Lulu beelines for the bar.

Saya and Lewis watch her go. The big man sighs, trying to come across as long-suffering but mostly sounding proud.

"I keep saying she's gotten too big to fling herself at everyone in that pickney way."

Saya shakes her head. "It's so good to see her. And you, Lewis. Even at… a time like this."

"Better a funeral than a wedding. Isn't that what the Big Book says?" He scratches his shiny head. "At least I think so. Never went much for the Sunday School schlock. And I'm told that's all there was at the chief's send-off."

Saya smiles, a little awkwardly. "It was what his family wanted."

"You mean his wife." He clucks in sympathy. "Cheka in Chanel, that one. David says she gave you an earful."

"Um."

Saya feels a prickling of heat across her face. It has less to do with memory than shame. She can't fault Célia for the outburst. If not for Saya's mistakes at the Zoo, there wouldn't be a need for Red Shield at all…

Lewis enfolds her in a hug. As he does, Saya represses another flash of the old days: Dad's cooking and Riku's laughter, a potful of spicy soup, a birthday cake studded in strawberries, a crowded New York apartment with broken air-conditioning. Reminders that if not for the war, she'd have been denied those small miracles of happiness too.

Her throat tightens, and to fight off the feeling, she squeezes Lewis back, to show him that she is glad he's here, until he yells and dances away.

"Same old bone-buster." He grimaces. " _Ow_."

"Tighter, Saya," Kai snarks. "Maybe you can flatten him until he fits through the turnstiles at the airport."

"The bane of my life," Lewis sighs.

Saya watches him and Kai clasp hands like brothers. Lewis had spent fifteen years at Okinawa before flying solo for overseas work. It shows in his good-natured ribbing with Kai, in the way he fusses over a giggling Sayumi and Sayuri like they are still children.

"I've brought that crate of horned melons," he tells Sayuri. "It was hell to get it through customs."

"Horned melon?" Saya asks.

Lewis grins. "She's got a craving for it. Likely it's because of—"

Yuri politely clears her throat. "Let's find ourselves a table?"

Lewis raises his brows and mimes zipping his lips. Saya wonders what exactly she is missing.

Their party moves _en masse_ to one of the large circular tables, reserved for special occasions. Saya finds herself against the wall, with Dee and Kai on one side, and Yumi and Yuri on the other. Across from her sit Lewis, David, Julia, V and Sachi. They've left Lulu to schmooze with Adam and Ezra at the bar with hot cups of _chocolat chaud._ Haji, always the odd one out even after all these years, stays behind Saya's chair like in the old days, an obsequious bodyguard.

It feels wrong to her. He's one of their own—and should be treated so. Glad as Red Shield are to use his talents in battle, they seldom go out of their way to include him in special occasions. Kai is an awkward-in-law, Yumi and Yuri distractedly doting nieces, the _Philharmonic_ a scattered work-family. He has few intimate connections beyond that.

 _Except me._

Again, she thinks of her conversation with Nathan. Thinks of the vial in her handbag. The chance for a family, and a future.

Reflexively, her fingers catch Haji's sleeve. Without meeting his eyes, she lures him into the seat beside hers, not like a trained dog on a leash but a puzzle-piece fitting into place.

Surprise stitches itself subtly across Haji's face. He says nothing. But beneath the table, his hand clasps hers.

David begins without preamble: "Red Shield 's board will spend the next few weeks in a push-and-pull. Franz is out of the picture. But a few loyalists will pester him to change his mind. At the least, he'll need to handle the personal details of Joel's will."

"So where does that leave us?" Yumi asks. "We've got scouts in Okinawa scanning for a threat. Will they be called back?"

Dee shakes her head. "They're part of my personal team. Red Shield's HQ may issue the final orders. But interim leadership takes over until a new Joel is selected."

" _If_ he is," Kai says.

A pensive silence settles across the room. It is broken by Saya. Reaching into her purse, she places Joel's pocket-watch in the center of the table. The chandelier-lights shine across its surface: hazy geometries of luminous gold.

"It doesn't matter if Red Shield is floundering," she says. "It's up to us to preserve Joel's legacy."

"Always," David agrees, in that tone that brooks no argument.

Saya turns to Dee. "Your scouts. What have they found in Okinawa?"

"The most interesting thing? A dry-foods factory razed at Yabuchi island. Signs show that it was abandoned in a hurry. Their paper trail is legit. But we used a reliable back-channel—" She winks at Lewis, who offers a two-fingered salute, "to locate their bank statements. The administrators received bimonthly deposits for operating costs. These far exceed anything for manufacturing dried _shikuwasa_."

"What do you mean?"

Dee pulls up a file on her tablet. "The last deposit was for 553,887,500,000 Yen. That's roughly 5 billion dollars. It was made by a company calling themselves IBM-UAWA. Ring a bell for anyone?"

David nods. "That was the front-name for a military research firm."

"I remember them." Julia says. "A few years ago they were subject to an investigation. They were charged with industrial espionage, and creating biogenic weapons to aid dictatorships and puppet regimes. Their CEO resigned right around the time Saya awoke."

"So: not exactly Care Bears," Kai says. "But what were these guys doing in Yabuchi?"

"Shady shit—pardon my French." Dee sets the smartphone down on the table. From its screen, a sliver of blue light zips out and expands like an umbrella. A holographic projection of an irrigation ditch at Yabuchi. The churned-up soil gives way to a stark clutter of skulls and ribcages. "Our teams excavated these remains yesterday. A burial site not too far from the factory. We couldn't ID the remains. Which means these Jay Does were shipped in from another country."

Saya's chest tightens. "You're saying they were experimenting on humans in this factory? Right under our noses?"

"It's galling, I know," Dee says. "We kept thinking Okinawa was a safe-zone. Like the Yanbaru incident never happened."

"People develop a short memory in times of peace," Lewis sighs. "Complacence leads to carelessness."

David is in no mood for philosophizing. "How recently was this factory functional?"

"The last recorded activity was two months ago." Dee hits a button on her device. The 3D hologram blinks out. It is replaced by a series of e-mails. The addressees are blurry and blacked-out, but the content of their exchange is visible. "There's more. We intercepted exchanges between two of the factory's 'foremen'—and a representative from IBM-UAWA. There was a high-alert warning about an escaped specimen. And a pair of dead guards. It was dated May 13th."

Yumi and Yuri exchange glances. "Wasn't that around the time Adam was attacked?" Yumi asks.

"Yeah. He was found by the Bar Junket at the 15th." Dee looks grim. "But here's the problem. According to these emails, the specimen never made it off Yabuchi island."

Saya frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Their correspondence shows that he self-terminated near Yabuchi's mangrove swamp. Adverse reaction to whatever was in his bloodstream." Her eyes narrow. "More interestingly, he wasn't responsible for killing the dead guards. The last message, quote unquote, states it was 'the work of something else completely.'"

Saya's frown deepens. She asks to see the correspondence; Dee hands the tablet over. Scrolling through the disjointed series of texts, Saya feels a creeping unease. Worse—a déjà vu.

 _"I crawled out of Hell just to see you..."_

Taking a breath, she says, "I think it was that Chevalier."

The group exchange glances, but don't contradict her. Not this time.

"Think about it," she says. "The first attack was inland from Yabuchi. The mother and daughter at Uruma. The next attack was Adam, at Sakurazaka. And he probably wasn't the only one. Kai—didn't you mention a nurse went missing around that time too? The last time her friends saw her was at a bar nearby."

Kai nods, slowly, "I figured it was a coincidence. But when you look at it that way..."

"He's been prowling Naha for weeks," Saya says. "I felt him... that night in the alleyway." Her heartbeat amps up. Haji edges closer, radiating quiet reassurance. She swallows, and goes on, "I felt him again—a few times afterward. But I figured I was—"

 _Crazy._

The entire table, Haji included, wear subdued looks of guilt. Saya stares back with a small dose of satisfaction. Her suspicions about a threat were accurate. But that doesn't explain the visions... unless she buys the _yuta's_ suggestion that Diva is trying to communicate with her from the dead.

 _Why is that harder to accept than your own madness?_ Diva whispers in her ear.

A shiver goes through Saya. She forces it down.

"What about the strike-team?" she asks Dee. "Did they find any traces of the Chevalier? Any other victims?"

Dee nods. "The last update was thirty-six hours ago. There was a sighting near Shinko Pier Central Park. At an empty rest-stop. The men's room was splattered with blood. But there were no bodies. Either he hid them himself—or he had someone assisting him."

"Any news since?"

"Zilch. I'll head back to Okinawa to help with the man-hunt. If something unusual turns up, we'll let you know."

"Thank you." Saya turns to Julia. "What about the blood-sample from the Chevalier? Did it reveal anything?"

Julia nods. Her glasses flash opaquely beneath the chandelier-lights. "We used a form of Raman spectroscopy. This is a non-destructive technique to create profiles of a substance's molecular structure and chemical composition. I wanted to use it to determine the structure of his hemoglobin."

"Why that?"

"Red blood cells show subtle changes as the subject ages. This is certainly the case for human beings. Also for artificially-created Chiropterans, such as those made by Cinq Flèches. Even the Schiff, to a degree."

"But not for a Chevalier," Kai guesses.

"Correct," Julia says. "That's what our culprit is. Unfortunately, this itself poses a number of issues. We know that blood is reliable for revealing sex and race, as well as a slew of lifestyle factors. But a Chevalier's blood is like a blank slate. Given the flexible nature of Chiropteran DNA, they can mimic a number of human attributes. Or none at all. So the most we can do is use their blood to correspond affinity between the Queens."

Saya has the sense that Julia is building up to something. "What have you discovered?"

Julia removes her glasses, and polishes them distractedly on her jacket. In a seeming non-sequitur, she says, "Back at Omoro, Saya, you speculated that the Chevalier was a Red Queen's. Why did you think that?"

Saya tries not to wince. "It occurred to me. Based on a… conversation I'd had with Nathan."

Julia smiles grimly. "I wish I knew what you both discussed. Because you were right on the mark."

"Wh-what?"

"This Chevalier. Whoever he is. There are unmistakable traces of the S-factor in his blood. Genetic traits found only in offspring of red-eyed Queens."

Shock ripples across the table. Yumi and Yuri dart nervous looks at Saya, then back to Julia.

"What are you saying, Julia-san?" Yuri asks. "Saya has... another Chevalier?"

"I thought she just had Haji, and Uncle Riku!" Yumi adds.

 _Uncle Riku._

The sickening flush that races through Saya could be grief or mortification. It's an effort to remember that Yumi and Yuri have no idea what transpired that night on Red Shield's ship. Of all the people at the table, excluding their Chevaliers, they are the only ones who haven't read Joel's Diary in its entirety. That was the deal between Joel and Kai: an attempt to keep their lives mess-free.

But now, with Joel gone...

Julia's reply wrenches her back into moment. "It's true that Saya once had two Chevaliers. But this one isn't hers."

"Isn't—?" Anxiety, deeper than confusion, knots Kai's features. "What're you saying?"

Julia replaces her glasses, her eyes perturbed beneath the lens of rational detachment. "I think we're looking at an ancestral Chevalier. One made from the blood of the ancient Queens. Saya and Diva's primogenitor."

Everyone at the table exchanges stunned glances, except Haji, whose face characteristically reflects nothing at all.

When no one says anything right away, Kai speaks up, "So—he's a Chevalier of Saya's _mom_? Like Nathan?"

Saya opens her mouth to speak. But it is Yumi who corrects him. "Yako-san—" V chuckles at Nathan's nickname, and a smirky Sachi shushes him, "—said he's the only Chevalier of our grandmother. A Blue Queen."

"That's why he isn't affected by Saya's blood," Yuri adds. "It's only dangerous to each sister's Chevalier."

V mutters, too low for anyone but a Chiropteran to hear, "That's why I freak out whenever Yumi shares her toothbrush. One day I'll end up borrowing it—and crystallize with a mouthful of Colgate down my throat."

Sachi snorts back, "She'd crystallize before you. Then you would have only a toothbrush to remember her by."

Haji swings a frigorific look at them—and they both shut up.

Without inflection, he says, "If I understand correctly, you are implying this Chevalier was created by Saya's aunt."

Julia nods reluctantly. "That's the closest supposition. Although..."

"What?" asks Saya.

"One has to wonder why—and how—he appeared in Okinawa. Or why he attacked Saya. You'd think he would gravitate to the service of a Queen. It's an innate biological drive for most Chevaliers. Even Nathan, after decades of wandering, allied himself with Diva. And then with Red Shield, as soon as Diva was gone. It was his way of pledging fealty to the next surviving Queen."

Saya has never considered it from that angle. Yet something tells her that Nathan's intentions cannot be conflated with this new Chevalier's, in the hopes of a pattern revealing itself. "He didn't seem..."

The voice fills her ears with unnerving sinuosity:

 _"I will pry you open. Peel you apart layer by layer. Until you are everything I want."_

She shudders.

Everyone is staring at her. With effort, she says, "He didn't seem interested in 'pledging.' He wanted to …hurt me."

 _Badly._

David's gaze hardens into iron-ore "We won't let that happen. Until the scouts conclude their investigation within Okinawa, it's best if you stay overseas, Saya."

"But—"

"As we discussed before, he may not be working alone." He gestures to Dee's tablet. "Given the proximity of this organization to our doorstep, he's likely being backed by a third party."

Saya swallows a number of arguments, for which she will find no arbiters among the table. Not even Haji.

Instead, she asks, "This company. IBM-UAWA. Do they have any other branches? We should investigate them in case they're trying something similar to Cinq Flèches."

Lewis nods, falling into the well-worn groove of intel-gathering. "I'll run a background check on the organization. But it'll take time. These guys don't have the cleanest hands. They won't leave visible electronic-trails. It's likely that smaller laboratories overseas will be doing their scutwork."

Saya accepts this, but isn't deterred. "Whatever you can find."

Lewis winks over his Lennon shades. "Just like old times, eh?"

"Mm." Saya manages a half-smile. But the observation isn't entirely comforting.

Perhaps it is the undercurrent of seriousness in the air, or simply the dimness of the bar, but for a heartbeat it is like seeing them as they'd been in 2007: Kai leaning forward with his elbows braced on the table in the classic pose of pent-up belligerence; David with his steepled fingers against his chin and his steely gaze gone inward as he prepares a workable strategy; Julia leaning back in her seat with her elegant legs crossed, contemplating Saya like an ever-fascinating genome beneath a microscope; Lewis cracking jokes in a way that diffuses the tension without once detracting from their primary goal.

It is as if the thirty-year gap has shrunk to nothing, and the war is still ongoing, the group falling into their old roles. A sense of reversion—or regression. It feels fated in one sense, doomed in another. Like a snake biting its own tail, each struggle, each sacrifice, leading them back to where they first began.

 _Except I'm not there,_ Diva whispers.

Saya flinches. Her hand goes to her necklace. The stone is rough-edged against her fingers. The blurred days of grief and confusion, distress and upheaval, make every moment surreal.

"Well." Kai rubs his hands together. "We have a game plan. "

"Or parts of it," Dee agrees. "In the meantime, we'll set up temporary camp at the Zoo."

"You mean _Le Grande Maison_ ," Yuri says with a glint of irony.

"Whatever."

"Shotgun: Soleil Suite!" Yumi announces. "The bed in that room is to _die_ for."

Yuri shakes her head. "You'll have to die someplace else."

"Huh? _Why_?!"

"Joel-san said the suite was officially for Auntie Saya's use."

Saya is caught off-guard. "What—? Oh no, Yuri. It's fine. I don't even know if Haji and I will be staying there—"

"It's the safest place for you to be," Dee cuts in reasonably. "I'll fly back to Okinawa tomorrow evening. Oversee our teams in case anything else turns up."

Saya clamps her mouth shut on the cry of _I want to come too!_ Saying it will only make her look like a child stubbornly resisting the requisite nap. She has no reason to avoid a trip to Bordeaux. More than that, she has no _choice_ —unless she plans to break off from the group and drag Haji on a monster-slaying expedition back to Okinawa.

The others are right. Too much is uncertain right now—Red Shield, its succession, the new threat. They need to reconnoiter until matters stabilize.

So she exhales, and backs down.

Excusing herself, she heads to the bathroom. Haji watches her go. His eyes meet hers in passing. But Saya can't bring herself to manage beyond a token smile. Her whole body is a knot of exhaustion.

In the bathroom, magnificently decorated in the Baroque glow of beige tiles and bronze faucets, she washes up with the silky, floral-scented soap. Her reflection is pale and jittery, her eyes like two fresh bruises. A resurrection of the Saya from the war.

In her ear, Diva giggles, _Did you really think she was gone?_

Flinching, Saya counts backward from thirty. The bathroom is quiet, with echoing acoustics. She sings _Au Clair de la Lune_ softly to herself.

"Oh!—Saya."

It is Julia. In the mirror, the graceful turn of her body is half-frozen in surprise. Then she relaxes into a smile. "I thought it was the Muzak. Your singing, I mean. I didn't realize you had such a lovely voice."

"Oh, um—" Saya turns off the faucet, blotting her face with a hand-towel. "I-I don't sing much. But I used to at the Zoo."

"I didn't realize." Julia sidles beside her, doing a perfunctory check of her make-up in the mirror. "It wasn't mentioned in Joel's Diary. But then, not everything about you is."

"Mm." Saya is ready to politely exit. But Julia is regarding her, her gaze mild, yet full of curiosity. Her face, in the dim lights, shows all the subtle changes exerted by time, marks testifying to a private life that has nothing to do with the war. A successful career, a husband, three children.

Perhaps it is that, more than her role as Saya's primary physician, that compels Saya to ask—

"Miss Julia?"

"Yes?"

"You and Ezra mentioned... that Queens once had children with their own Chevaliers. Right?"

"That's right." Julia regards her sidelong. "But our research suggests that they evolved past the ability. Likely a mechanism to prevent complications tied to inbreeding."

Saya knows this, the same way she knows Nathan was probably lying. Yet her stomach clenches painfully.

"W-Well. What about if the sister and her Chevaliers are dead? Would that create changes in—I dunno. Body chemistry? Fertility levels? I understand we—Chiropteran Queens regulate ovulation through shared pheromones."

Julia takes off her glasses. Her eyes have gone wide. "Now Saya. How did you know that? We only made the discovery a year ago."

Lip bit, Saya glances elsewhere.

Thankfully, Julia doesn't press. "It's true that Red Shield discovered cell-signaling pathways between Queens. But it's not just ovulation they regulate. They're also responsible for communication between Queens and their Chevaliers. Alarm messages. Food trails. Sex pheromones. It's why their bodies react differently to their sister's Chevaliers as compared to their own ones. Our theories suggest that the former's presence leads to an increase in gonadotropin. This is a hormone linked to reproductive function." She hooks her glasses over her blouse's pocket. "The effect isn't observed when Queens mate with their own Chevaliers. Some speculate that their Chevaliers act as equalizers. They balance out the Queen's mood."

"Balance it out?" Saya processes this with confusion. "Shouldn't that make conception easier?"

This earns her a not-quite-smile. "If you believe the old wives' tale that relaxation is the best medicine." Her expression smooths out. "Unfortunately, it's not so simple. A Queen's body is highly toxic to her Chevalier's sperm. We've dubbed it the _Kiss of Death_."

" _What_?"

"Dramatic, yes. But so is mother nature." Julia sighs. "Mating is a risky time for females. A host of harmful bacteria floods their systems along with seminal fluid. Typically, this triggers a cascade of protective proteins. Call it an immune system response. In Queens, it occurs on double-time."

"What do you mean?

"After mating, a Queen's body becomes hyper-vigilant. Not only do her cells differentiate between bacterial invaders and sperm cells. But she also blocks off her _own_ Chevalier's cells while protecting those of her sister's Chevalier. This is done via powerful biochemicals. We refer to it as CFC."

"Cryptic Female Choice," Saya whispers.

Julia nods. "For decades, we adhered to the traditional belief that conception was a male-driven system. But studies of Chiropterans show that the _female_ is in control. Her body chooses the victor—and expels the rest."

"So what's the pointof her own Chevaliers?" Saya asks. "Why mate with them in the first place?"

Something in Julia's manner softens, a segue from teacher to friend. "Nature is one thing, Saya. Nurture is another. Take Yumi and Yuri. One glance at them confirms that Queens don't need chemical messages of reproductive compatibility to be attracted to their own Chevaliers—much less live happily with them." Gentler, "It's not the case between you and Haji."

"Mm." A stupid blush clings to Saya's cheeks. "You mentioned … the S/D-Factor. Is that what survives the, um, _Kiss of Death_?"

"Correct. The seminal proteins carrying the S/D factor coagulate into a 'mating plug'. This exudes defense chemicals that seep into the Queen's blood, sticking to receptors near her brain. They keep her body-chemistry hospitable for conception. Meanwhile, the plug itself offers a protein source for her babies' cocoons. Her own Chevalier's semen lacks this ability."

"Is there—I dunno. A way to change that?"

If Julia hears the hopefulness in her voice, she doesn't humor it. But she doesn't gloss it over with tepid professionalism, either. "Given biological evidence that it was once a commonality, I wouldn't call it _un_ -possible. But for it to happen— _now_ —would stretch the realm of logic."

"How so?"

"To start with, it would require an unusual form of estrous."

She says it in the tone of an impending invasion. Saya frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Like most placental mammals, Queens go into heat. They even display overt menstruation—bleeding—every once a year. But this is a tightly-regulated system. For a pregnancy to occur between a Queen and her Chevalier, there would need to be an _aberration_ —external or internal—that induces multiple eggs in one cycle. To say nothing of a spike in libido. Queens reportedly have high sex drives as it is."

Saya's flush darkens, her body caught between face-covering or fleeting altogether. "Wh-what—?"

Julia chuckles. "Don't be so embarrassed, Saya. Remember, most of these findings were compiled by Professor Collins." Her humor fades. "Some had merit. Others were blinkered by a... let's call it a _masculine_ lens. During his time as Diva's chief physician, Collins labeled her promiscuous _._ This was because she had intercourse with different Chevaliers and humans. He purported that all Queens were the same."

"And... you don't think so?"

"I think environment plays as much of a factor as biology. There's a saying that genetics is a lottery. To an extent, it's true. How you turn out in the long term is determined by a host of factors. But many of these are not static." Turning, she gets a comb out of her handbag, and begins brushing her hair from the nape. "Just as human beings continue to evolve, so do you. The genomic revolution allows us to track allelic shifts in both cases. Evolution in action."

Saya finds herself mesmerized by the teeth of the comb running through Julia's hair, over and over, revealing gray roots beneath the sheen of their darker exterior. "So you're saying... there's a possibility?"

"I wish I could give you a definitive answer." Julia straightens with a sigh. "Chiropteran's bodies are complicated. There's still a great deal we have yet to uncover." She slips her glasses back on. "I can tell you one thing. For a Queen to conceive with her Chevalier, there are a host of factors that would need to occur simultaneously. Ovulating multiple eggs per her yearly cycle, instead of one. A miraculous change in chemical signaling, so she isn't put off by a genetically similar male. Mate-binding in the form of blood-drinking, so her body is relaxed and receptive."

Julia is kind and helpful as always. But for Saya, her response, condensed down to a few comprehensible words, points in one dismal direction:

 _Unlikely_.

"Could there be a way to induce these things?" she asks, thinking of Nathan's tincture. "With the right herbs?"

"Herbs?" Julia raises an eyebrow. "Those aren't my specialty. Although Chaste Tree Berry comes to mind. I took supplements before I had Adam."

 _Chaste Tree Berry?_ Is that what the tincture contains? Saya is doubtful. "What about... I dunno. Medications?"

"Clomid. It's used for IVF." Julia's expression softens. "For _human_ women. I'm not sure how effective it would be for a Chiropteran."

"I see."

The determination dispels itself all at once. Saya sags against the marble basin.

 _I should have known better._

Julia unexpectedly touches her, her palm soft on Saya's shoulder. "I see you'd hoped for a different answer."

Saya wants to shrug it off. _Nothing important_. Nothing except a real future—or so it seems. An avowal of everything to Haji that she can't otherwise put into words. _Nothing important. Just everything that's normal and happy and right._ But when have those words ever applied to Haji or herself?

 _I should be grateful for what I have._

 _It's more than I deserve._

She whispers, "I know it's silly of me. I should forget about it."

Julia shakes her head. "I think it's perfectly natural. You've fought to free yourself from a war. You finally have a resting-place. It's very life-affirming to want a family."

"You don't think I'm being stupid?" She hears the echo of Haji's words. "Trading one burden for another."

Julia's eyes widen a fraction. She seems startled past her poise and into a compulsion for honesty. "I know it's not... fashionable to conflate motherhood with happiness in this day and age. It was something foisted on women in the past. In many ways, it still is. If you have a busy career, it certainly chafes at your capacity to express yourself." She smiles ruefully. "At least, that's what I assumed when I was carrying Dee. But the reality was different."

Saya is curious despite herself. "It was?"

"Having a child... wakes up certain parts of yourself. It did for me. It did so doubly for David. He was even more of a proactive parent than I was." She shrugs. "That's not the case with everyone. Some do without, and are happier for it. Dee, for one, warns us not to expect any grandchildren. We know better than to argue. It's her choice."

Saya's words are dull with resignation. "I don't really have a choice."

"You think that now. But Chiropteran Queens don't do a lot of what you've done, Saya." Julia squeezes her shoulder, before her hand slides away. "Science is advancing every day. Within another few decades, we might succeed at IVF treatments for you. Or donor eggs. The possibilities are there. They just need time to manifest."

"Mm." Saya manages a weak smile. "Thank you, Miss Julia."

The older woman departs on a waft of lavender and a _click-click_ of high-heels. Saya stays behind a moment, fighting off the misery that threatens to engulf her. Tears blur her eyes; she swipes them away. There's an impulse to dig into her pockets for the tincture, and pour it down the drain.

Julia is right. It's too unlikely. And Haji is right too. She should focus on healing from the war instead of chasing after the impossible. She clearly isn't in her right mind, or else she'd never believe Nathan at all. Everything he'd fed her was a load of—

 _But what if it's not?_

 _What if there's a possibility?_

Outside, a quiet commotion breaks out. She hears the overlap of voices, Kai's fierce whispers, and Haji's quiet promptings: " _Are you sure?"_ Then Yuri begins to sob.

Adrenaline galvanizes her. Saya leaps out the door. "What? What's happened?"

They are all standing around the table. Ezra, Adam and Lulu have joined them. Saya's gaze passes from one face to another: she sees reflected wavering degrees of shock and awe. Lewis is grinning with star-spangled intensity. Lulu bounces with the giddiness of a helium balloon. David looks punch-drunk, Ezra fascinated, Adam embarrassed, Dee cackling in profane delight. Julia glances at Saya, her smile tempered with sympathy from their prior conversation.

"Saya," she murmurs. "Yuri has something to share."

Saya blinks, not understanding.

Ahead, Yuri is enfolded by Kai, Haji, V and Sachi, a shield of manliness that is spoiled only by the blubbering. Mostly Kai's. He has an arm around Yuri's shoulders, completely focused on her, his eyes shining through tears. Yuri's other hand is enfolded in Haji's; his blue gaze is so soft as he regards her. Immersed in quiet happiness. Yumi, hanging off Haji's other arm, grins like a Cheshire cat who'd conspired to make everything happen just this way. Maybe she had.

The foursome doesn't spot Saya right away. But Sachi does. He and V stand loosely flanking Yuri. V is awkwardly chortling but seems nonetheless pleased with himself; Sachi's eyes are fixed on his Queen with a mingled fondness and wistfulness.

Then he notices Saya, and flushes.

"Umm."

They others redirect their attention to her. Saya stares. In their midst, Yuri looks so _small_. The sight of her face makes Saya's heart trip over itself with dizzying déjà vu.

"What's happened?" she asks.

Except she already knows. Clues fall crisply into place like a stacked deck of cards. The sappy little glances she'd kept intercepting between Yuri and Sachi, the day at the marketplace when she'd gorged herself on _chawanmushi,_ Haji's remarks that her temperature felt strange…

Beneath the glimmer of the chandeliers, Yuri's expression is a replica of Diva's, when she'd spoken of her babies. Her eyes a dreamy blue. Her mouth shaped into an ethereal smile. She looks at once exalted and terribly afraid.

"Auntie Saya..."

"What? What's wrong?"

Kai catches Saya's arm, and hauls her closer to him. "Better to just get it out. Yuri's pregnant."

"Wh-what?"

"Two weeks along, more or less. She held back the news all this time. Yumi, V and Sachi knew. And Lewis, because Yuri wanted those goddamn melons. But she wanted to wait until we were _all_ sure."

"Sure?"

"About... how you felt."

"How _I_ felt?" Frowning, Saya tugs her arm away, glancing at Yuri. Who is sobbing with a musical softness.

"I-I was scared," she explains. "After everything you've been through, I didn't think you'd be happy. About... more of us."

"I _told_ her to just get it over with," Yumi says. She is smiling, but crying also, tears streaking her cheeks. "She's been so terrified to tell anyone. I'm just glad it's out in the open now."

"You _are_ okay with it, right?" Yuri asks. "Please, Auntie Saya." Her eyes shine with an astonishing luster. Her face is familiar as a sister's. "I figured I should share it now. After the funeral, I mean. Joel-san is gone, and we won't forget him. He'll be here as long as we are... and what better way to pass his memory on than through family? _Our_ family. The one we have, because with death there's always _life_ , and that's what really matters."

"Well said, Yuri," Haji murmurs.

Yuri smiles tremulously, and squeezes his hand. Both their eyes are on Saya. For a moment, Saya thinks of Nathan's remark— _Haji could… with Yumi and Yuri_ —and experiences a cold wallop of fury.

 _Stop_.

What a sickening thought.

It's clear who the father is. V is preening like he won the grand lotto, while Sachi's own gaze is shaded with the knowledge that he's come second place, yet, inexplicably, been pronounced the winner. That's how it is among Chiropterans. Cross-fertilization. Just like Julia said.

 _That's one way,_ Diva whispers in her ear.

 _Are you ready to try the other?_

All at once, the fight goes out of Saya. It hurts to smile, like her jaw might crack. But she manages it. It takes all the strength inside her. All the love. She _feels_ it, a hot spreading star-streak, this trembling radiance of love.

It is all she has left.

"Yuri. Yumi." She extends her arms. "Come here."

With happy cries, they cannonball into her, nearly knocking her backwards. She squeezes them as Diva would have done, if she'd been here in Saya's place.

"I'm so happy for you," she breathes. "The little ones having little ones."

"Oh, _I'm_ not having anything!" Yumi snorts, but her eyes are lit with relief at circumventing a dreadful scene. "Except maybe a Stoli. Or five."

"We could all use a drink," Kai agrees. Encircling the three Queens in his arms, he chivies them toward the bar. "Except the pregnant lady. She gets whatever Future Fatties drink."

"Keep it up, Kai, and it might be your blood," Yuri says sweetly.

"Ooh. I'm _shaking_. Add a belly and varicose veins we'll _all_ be terrified of her Pudgyship's wrath."

"Which may come sooner than expected."

"Unlike the babies," he grumbles. "Gimme a list of dishes. You're stuck eating for three until at least next year..."

Saya lets happiness and leftover adrenaline drive her family's banter. Yumi and Yuri are hugged close to her, still hiccoughing through tears but smiling and no longer afraid. Their clashing jangle of perfumes, Yumi's spicy, Yuri's sweet, blend together in an aromatic waft that summons for a powerful moment the specter of Diva herself.

Saya half-expects to hear her sister's voice, to glimpse her mad little smile.

Except Diva is gone.

Like Joel. Like Dad. Like Riku.

 _It's up to the rest of us to keep going._

At the bar, Saya takes her place beside Haji. The familiarity of his body is like an optimistic possibility not yet realized. Without meeting his gaze, she motions to the waiter for a glass of water. Into it, she pours the entire contents of Nathan's tincture.

Raising the glass, she stares over its rim at Haji's shocked eyes—then knocks it back.

A mock-toast.

To the atom of _What-if_ between them, so tiny it is indistinguishable from _Why-not?_

* * *

 _Next chapter:_

 _Saya is dtf. Expect smut :3_


	27. Equinox

_Happy Saturday, guys! :) Here's the smutty installment, as promised - although I have to admit, this is one of those chapters where the smut is kind of besides the point given the misgivings between Our Favorite Couple._

 _Expect it to get much, much worse before it gets better. Also expect lots of angst and nostalgia, as a visit is paid to the Zoo._

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Le Grande Maison

Route de Libourne D243,

33330 Bordeaux, France

Surreal to behold the Zoo's manor again.

No longer a burnt-out husk: its crumbling facade has been restored to the original Beaux-Arts style. Yet everything is fresher, more modern. Clean paint, paved pathways, manicured gardens. In the grey drizzle, the building ought to carry the bland patina of a luxury hotel.

Yet traces of its old-world glamour remain.

The last time Haji had glimpsed the building from his vantage, fire had chewed everything apart, the air overhung with smoke. Corpses strewn everywhere, a mess of rag dolls ripped open in a treacle-spill of blood.

And Saya had stood at the forefront, her stricken face bathed in the inferno's glow.

She looks the same way now. At once still and shivery, as if she's walked into a disaster-zone.

Hefting his cello-case out of the cab, Haji sidles closer. "Saya?"

She jerks. "Wh-what?"

"Shall we go in?"

"Um. Yeah."

She gives herself that shrugging shake that is becoming habitual, like a sleeper roused from a nightmare. Haji watches her trudge up the stairs. She'd had nothing but a glass of water at _Les Ambassadeurs_. Later, on their two-hour journey from Paris to Bordeaux by train, she'd plied herself with highball after highball of sangria. The poor regimen shows in her groggy eyes and the sluggishness of her manner.

Yet her stride remains that of a soldier marching into battle: head up, shoulders back, jaw set.

Haji follows a few paces apart. The entire day—Joel's funeral, the news of the ancestral Chevalier, Sayuri's astonishing announcement, Saya's dried-up silence, the tincture she'd quaffed down—has left him anxious for her. An anxiety he doesn't want to let her see, lest she think he is coddling.

 _Is it coddling if I simply want to know that she is all right?_

At the tall palladian doors, Saya stops. In the glow from the fanlight, her eyes are suddenly faraway, edging on moist.

"Saya?"

"Wh-what?'

"Are you certain you wish to stay here?"

"Y-Yeah." Hastily, she swipes at her eyes. "It's just a few weeks."

"Yes."

Just a few weeks—where their downspiraling tragedy began. Dozens of people killed. Their childhood scorched to ash, Saya's sweetness hardening into an exoskeleton of hatred, Haji's own devotion warped into a ball-and-chain of servitude.

Just a few weeks in this nightmarishly modern shell of their former home.

 _Was it wise to agree to this?_

Inside, the expansive foyer has been transformed into a reception area. Under the gleam of the teardrop chandeliers, everything is glossy and smells of fresh-cut roses. Yet beneath that hangs a festering stink that only a Chiropteran can discern. A ghost-cloud of the Bordeaux Sunday.

He knows Saya catches it too. But she keeps her eyes straight ahead, and says nothing.

They are expected at the front desk. Red Shield has already booked the finest room in the east wing—the Soleil Suite. Sayumi and Sayuri are to be staying in the room across. Lewis and Lulu have flown overseas to begin gathering intel. Dee and David are gone too, back to Okinawa for their investigation. The rest of the Silversteins will remain in Paris, at a medical outpost where Julia can conduct her research on the unknown Chevalier's blood. The Miyagusukus, meanwhile, will stay at the Zoo, busying themselves with establishing security checkpoints, unpacking, nosing around, eating St. Honoré cake and soufflé (Kai: _Diabetes in a dish_ ), and other settling-in activities.

Haji is grateful for the lull. He is happy— _overjoyed_ —at Sayuri's pregnancy. But its very reality underscores its surrealism. A growing clan of Chiropterans. An expanding family. With Saya at the helm, the reluctant matriarch once-removed, her ambivalence edging into...what?

Bitterness? Envy? Hope?

He dares not ask.

Following the bellhop up and out of the elevator, he and Saya cross the landing. Glancing around, Haji is dazed by how familiar the layout is. There is the ornate Serlian-style window where Saya liked to gaze out and fantasize about whirligig adventures once they traveled the world. There is the mantelpiece that Joel often leaned against, declaiming dreary works by Cesare Lombroso. There is the terrace with its pink tangles of perennial blossoms, where Saya and he took their coffee on pleasant afternoons, sitting face-to-face on the wrought iron table: Saya gleefully absorbed in her tray of éclairs, Haji's own eyes flitting with fascination to the low décolletage of her day-gown, the sun pouring down on his slowly-softening brains...

Then Saya tugs his sleeve, and he trips back into the present.

"They've put us in my old room."

 _Oh God_.

This time, he is the one who goes still. The idea of crossing the threshold is unseemly. Her old girlhood room, the centerpiece of his boyhood nostalgia and adolescent fever-dreams. A place that was once their cozy crow's nest against the tide of adult troubles that had washed through the world below.

The tide has long swept in.

"Haji?"

"Yes?"

"Are you coming or not?"

He follows her into the room. In the next beat, there is a gust of relief.

Nothing is as he remembers. The space is still high-ceilinged and splendid. But its decor is pale gold, and cream, and bronze, with elegant _pierre deux_ wallpaper and spindly-legged 18th century furnishings straight out of a Fragonard painting. Saya's old four-poster bed is gone. The new model is a gilt-and-silk rococo that dominates the space. The candelabra lamps on either end-table throw a soft glow across the turned-down duvet covers and the expanse of creamy linen.

Like the rest of the hotel, a haze lingers in the air, overlaying the complex olio of bodies and food and chemicals.

But Haji is determined not to remark on it. Not unless Saya does first.

His Queen lets go of his sleeve. Sighs with something he can't parse: relief, ruefulness. The entire space radiates the blandness of a typical hotel. Yet the knowledge is bittersweet.

It truly is, after Joel's demise, _The end of an era._

Their luggage has already been brought upstairs. On the dresser, a cut-crystal bowl, overflowing with candied fruit, vies for space with two wineglasses, and a complimentary bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Saya plucks the bottle from its tray, squinting at the label. "1883."

"Good year."

" _Terrible_ year. It's when the Zoo burned down. Whoever chose this label has a lousy sense of humor."

He expects her to put the bottle aside. Instead she tugs off the foil covering, and gets to work corkscrewing it. The seal goes off with the harsh _crack_ of gunfire. Ignoring the glasses, Saya takes a deep swig straight from the bottle.

Frowning, Haji steps closer. "Saya—"

"What?"

"Perhaps you have had enough to drink tonight."

"Oh? So I can't even choose my _beverages_ now?"

It comes out brittle as ice. But she doesn't resist when he takes the bottle from her. Not like a parent taking candy from a child, but a lifeguard easing a swimmer away from dangerous headwaters. As Chiropterans, their tolerance is high. But he has never known Saya to imbibe more than one glass.

"Shall I order up room service?" he asks. "You have not eaten all day."

"I'm not hungry."

A lie. He can hear the sub-rosa gurgling of her stomach. Hear the hypnotic song of her blood circulating and her cells dividing—her entire body a translucent cynosure of hot incessant _life_.

It is only her mind that remains maddeningly opaque.

"Perhaps some tea? It will clear your head."

"I'm fine."

"But—"

" _Leave_ _it_."

She sinks into a pouf at the dressing table. Plucks out her hairpins, tossing them aside— _click-clack-click_. Her hair, tumbling dark and glossy around her face, makes her seem improbably young. The Saya he'd first met at the Zoo—his original boyhood obsession. Sweet-sixteen going on eternal.

It was so long ago. Over a century that might as well be a millennium for all the changes they've undergone.

Kicking off her heels, Saya rubs the soles of her stockinged feet. "...Ow."

"Are you all right?"

"Cramp in my leg."

"Too many drinks. You could be dehydrated."

"Or crippled." It is a slurred grumble. "I don't understand how Yuri walks in these things—"

She breaks off, the silence unspooling.

 _Yuri._

One more subject he was determined not to summon. Not until Saya did first.

Quietly, he says, "It was unexpected. Her announcement."

"Mm."

"Did it ...upset you?"

"What does it matter? She was terrified enough that I'd have a conniption."

He finds her phrasing rather telling, but doesn't press her. They remain where they are, the silence flowing around them, broken only by the somber ticking of the old-fashioned pendulum clock at the mantel.

Then Saya whispers: "You were happy for her. I saw."

Haji is wary of her tone, but unable to refute the fact.

He thinks of Yuri as a five-year-old, eating her cereal at the kitchen stool, little feet swinging. Thinks of when she and Yumi started their periods at sixteen: Yuri bingeing sullenly on buckets of ice cream and while Yumi bawled her eyes out because she'd wanted to stay a tomboy forever. Thinks of the last time they'd made gingerbread cookies from scratch on the eve of Saya's Awakening—Yuri sneakily licking icing sugar from her fingers while Yumi hip-checked him to appropriate the whisking bowl: _More cream, Haji!_

He'd thought them barely children themselves then.

He says, "Happy… is not the right word."

"What then?"

"Proud, perhaps. That she is ready to make this journey."

Something flickers in Saya's eyes. A crack on the fogged glass between them. Then she looks away. "I'm proud of her too. Just—my mind is in a weird place."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

" _No_." The crack ices over; she becomes remote again. "What is there to talk about?"

"Anything you wish to say."

"Oh? So when it's about _Sayuri's_ babies, suddenly you're all ears?"

"Saya..."

He curses inwardly, regretting his own stubbornness the day of their argument. It has already become one of their white elephants. _Babies_. The possibility and impossibility of them. Her monomania struggling with his misgivings.

They are both aimless after the war in different ways. Both struggling to fill up the emptiness of time and their own lives. But for Haji, children are a redundancy. He hasn't given a thought to them in years. Certainly not in the context of fatherhood. Why would he? Normalcy is no longer in his matrix. Since his resurrection as her Chevalier, it's as if he has inverted day for night, life for death.

Only Saya remains the epicenter of his world. Only her happiness is the pulse dictating the heart of himself.

Which is why he is determined to _understand_ this fixation of hers. It seems inextricably bound up with Diva—as if her doomed sister's loneliness, her mad maternal fancies, have transferred to Saya's account after her demise.

As if Saya is desperate to live the life Diva lost.

Sighing, he edges closer. "Saya, if I was insensitive before, I am sorry."

"What does that mean, exactly? Sorry?"

"Whatever you would like it to mean."

 _Just as long as you talk to me_ , he thinks.

But Saya's face is a twist of stoppered anger. "I don't want to do this again. We came here to bury our old friend. Not argue over my _misguided obsession."_

His own words flung tartly back at him. He absorbs them with a constriction of muscles, but doesn't retreat. Somehow, her ire is better than her frosted-over silence earlier. The occasional outburst won't kill him. And there is honesty in every spark of temper she shoots his way.

He returns a steady look to Saya's fierce one. "Our friend's burial is done. If we are going to discuss a future, it might as well be now. But please do not push me away like this, Saya. You are making us both miserable for no reason."

She jerks her head away. Even from behind, the taut articulation of her spine and shoulders is evident. But the conversational emollient— _please_ —seems to work.

Or maybe Saya isn't in the mood to fight, either.

She says, "You didn't want to entertain the idea before."

"It caught me off-guard. Your... wishes caught me off-guard. But if Nathan is to be believed—"

"You still don't think he was telling the truth?"

"I do not know what to think."

She is silent a moment. Then she blows out a breath. "To be honest, I don't know, either. I'd never wanted children before. The idea of more Chiropterans—more of _us_ —was horrifying. I was ready to send even Yumi and Yuri to their graves."

"I remember."

A miracle, that Kai had interceded that night. Knocked sense into her, and literal sense into Haji. Without the young man's pushiness, Haji would never have dared to coax Saya from the razor's edge of despair. It could've been a foolhardy gambit into disaster.

 _But it wasn't._

 _She is still alive._

 _And yet—_

Then Saya glances at him, and something sparks in her eyes. Grief. Pleading. "Don't you _see_? Those children changed everything. Not just for—for Diva. For all of us."

"Saya—"

"Before that, I'd never expected peace, or an end. Not until I killed Diva. Once that happened, I was sure I'd get to rest. Except Diva's dead, and I'm not. And the life stretching ahead... it's too strange. No end in sight. No meaning."

"But children will give you meaning?"

 _I need something solid,_ she'd told him. _Something the two of us can share._

But why fixate on offspring? Are the two of them, together, not enough? Or is their past patterned on such bleak inevitability that she can't bring herself to envision their future?

Then Saya whispers: "It's not about _meaning_. I know you think it's some crazy thing. At first, I thought so too. I kept trying to figure out why something I'd never cared about suddenly meant so much to me. But in my heart, I already know why."

Haji waits expectantly.

"It's like Yuri said. It's about death. But also _life_. Proof of life. Something to carry into the future."

"You make it sound as if... you are halfway dead."

Her mouth makes a bitter shape. "Aren't I?"

"Saya—"

"Over a century of blood and war. The life I lived... it's built on the suffering of others. Celia… Joel's wife… she was right about that. Being at the Zoo is just another reminder. This whole place smells like a funeral pyre. And I'm the one who set it alight."

Haji opens his mouth in reflexive denial. She cuts him off. "I can't undo that. I can't go back to a different time, to an innocent childhood with Diva. Even with Yumi and Yuri, I missed out on watching them grow up. I'll miss out again with Yuri's babies." She sighs. "But if Nathan was telling the truth, I'll at least get a few decades with my own daughters. _Ours_."

 _Ours_.

The word mainlines straight into his heart. A fact he had not fully absorbed.

She manages a tremulous smile. "I like the idea of raising them with love, the way Yumi and Yuri were." _The way Diva and I weren't,_ she means. "And I—I like the idea of our daughters keeping you happy while I sleep, Haji."

"Saya..." He has to resist his desire to gather her into his arms, lest she withdraw altogether. The moment is too fragile. "Your feelings do you credit. But you owe me nothing. I have more than enough happiness in my life."

"Do you?"

"Yes. With _you_."

Flinching, she turns away. But not before he sees the tears twinkling on her cheeks. "You say that now. But time passes. Feelings change. Will this—us—always be enough for you?"

"More than enough." He is ready to say it a thousand times, a thousand ways, until she believes it. "It is you I want. For as long as I can have you."

"Three years out of thirty? You barely have me at all. And I barely have you."

"Saya—"

She shakes her head. Not dismissal so much as a bone-deep sadness. And that is harder for Haji to bear. Crossing the room, he tries to touch her shoulder. But she evades with a smooth _pas-de-deux_. Kneels to unlatch her suitcase, fetching out her toiletry bag, and her panda-print pajamas. In the lamplight, he takes in her profile: the eyelashes spiky-wet with tears, but the stare blank, almost a stranger's.

Defeated, he drops his hands. "Saya—forgive me. I am simply trying to understand—"

"You can't."

"But—"

She stares down for a moment, then raises a smoother face. "I'm tired, Haji. I've just said goodbye to a dear friend. I'm done talking about this."

That shuts him down. Makes him feel boorish for dredging up these matters while the atmosphere is seasoned with death. Tonight isn't the time or place.

Resigned, he exhales. "I will let you get changed."

Better to give her space. Go out for a walk—and return when she is fast asleep. With luck, his light-sleeping Queen will not stir when he joins her in bed. Will let him hold her, soaking up her warmth until the tip of dawn, since she refuses to allow him that joy in her waking hours.

More than anything else, he wants to make love to her. The four days she'd kept herself apart were a thirsty desert of absence.

But there seems no way to broach the subject. Not after the conversation they've shared.

Then Saya begins undressing as if she is alone in the room. It is an astonishment. As the months pass, she is slowly forsaking her girlish modesty: seldom turning down the lights when they make love, seldom shrinking away in shyness at the idea of lounging in the nude together, seldom grabbing for the bedsheets or his button-down shirts when she crosses to the bathroom.

But this is different. She does not once look his way.

Shimmying out of her black dress, she leaves it draped across an armchair. Peels off her stockings, a faint pink ring from the elastic stamped on her abdomen. She fingers it with a dissatisfied moue. But Haji thinks that soft pooch of belly suits her nearly as much as the fuller breasts, the delectable hips and that satiny, satin-clad bottom that only underscores the delicacy of her bone structure. Three square meals a day are turning her from a big-eyed waif back into a sleek curvy woman.

An echo of the Saya from the Zoo.

Suddenly, being in her old bedroom summons up every detail of his bottomless fascination for her. Summons up all the Sayas in their different shapes: the spoiled-sweet spitfire of the 1800s, the blind berserker in Vietnam, the Okinawan schoolgirl with a smile like cotton candy and a spine like steel. The whole history of her, a technicolor carousel playing out in the room, around the Saya of today.

Luminous. Tormented. Tantalizing.

Haji forces his tripping pulse to slow.

 _She is tired and grieving. We both are._

 _Let her rest._

Then Saya reaches behind to fumble with the clasp of her brassiere. Stops, arms akimbo, and glances over her shoulder. Her eyes hold the rich dark sweetness of chocolate. "Will you help, or just watch?"

Blinking, he realizes her ploy. An apology for her moodiness, without truly apologizing. A way to bewitch, bother and bewilder him into compliance.

"I thought ...you were tired."

"Tired of talking." Her eyelashes flit imploringly at him. "Not you."

That is all it takes.

He flows up behind her without sound. Undoes the clasp and lets the straps slip down her shoulders. Her skin is limned in a soft gold by the lamplight. Her breasts, when she drags his hands up to replace the bra, warm his cool palms. Such lovely breasts, curved like teardrops. Nestled between them, the necklace with Diva's stone glitters blood-red.

She shivers when he kneads her breasts, catching the nipples between his fingers. Lets off a kittenish noise as he nuzzles her hair to drop kisses to her nape. Her inrushing aroma, the radiant heat of her, are entrancing. The first time in the past few days since she's permitted him to touch her this way. He prays it is a good sign. A patching-up—and not a mysterious mindgame where Saya changes the rules as she goes along.

Then she whispers: "Tell me you love me."

The complex undertones are either test or plea.

"Saya..."

"Do you?"

"Of course I do." How can she even doubt that? It intensifies by the hour. Leaves him torn-open and throbbing for her, every stale pop lyric and timeless love ballad seething in his brain. "You have—"

"What?"

"Tied me to your kitchen chair. Broke my throne. Cut my hair."

There is no humor in that truth. But he has practice at shaping tragedy into lyricism. Saya tips him a doleful half-smile.

"I've led you such a life, haven't I?" she whispers. "I'm sorry. I wish it could've been different."

"Different?"

"Simpler."

He spans her closer in his arms. Kisses her hair, inhaling the visceral pull of its scent. "Nothing could be simpler to me than loving you."

She shivers. His words have an almost physical effect on her; a pinwheel of stumbling heartbeats he can feel behind her ribcage. His own body sings at a matching voltage. It is always like this—half chemical synchronicity, half century-old intimacy. Having her repeatedly does nothing to take the edge off. It only whets his appetite: sharp-toothed gluttony tightened back on a short leash.

"Did you imagine us doing this in my room?" Saya whispers. "When you were... younger?"

 _Too often._ "Sometimes."

"So it doesn't feel—I dunno. Weird? Being here."

"No." He kisses her ear; it pinkens to his touch. "It is just a room now."

That—mercifully, tragically—is true.

"I guess so. Still, I feel like... it's bad luck to do this after a funeral."

"As I understand, it is what people do after funerals."

"Oh." She swallows audibly. "You've seen a lot of funerals. Haven't you, Haji?"

He cannot deny that. Crossing the distance of years to greet her each Awakening, he has watched so many comrades fall. He still remembers the names of the fallen, though he's lost the habit of summoning their memories on a daily basis. Life—the Mission—has always moved on too fast.

Only Saya gives his world an axis.

She gasps when he swings her up in his arms—a high girlish gasp that thrums like music down his spine. Then she is twisting to kiss him, sweet as sangria, bright as gunpowder, sparking a line from his skull to his groin with a sugar-white _pop_.

They tumble together across the bed. His whole body always feels so heavy on hers, a second-skin needing to be shed. Sometimes it smothers her: she will scramble from under his weight and take command. But tonight, a switch flips her body into buttery acquiescence, her hands winding into his hair and her thighs flexing open to trap him over her.

He makes ragged sounds as she kisses him wherever she can touch, her mouth a wet flower blooming here, there, everywhere. Her hot little hands burrow insistently into his clothes, until Haji's desire pulls itself in a million different directions at once, control cracking along the fault-lines until he fears it will collapse entirely.

"Saya—"

"Please, Haji. Don't say no."

 _Say no?_ As if he could bear to refuse her anything. But it makes him realize that she fears a hasty withdrawal in the wake of their conversation. It is true: the possibility of babies does his head in. Especially when he can't understand why she'd believe Nathan—the veritable Prince of Lies.

But Saya is staring at him. Eyes like half-lit cigarettes, bright yet smoky, telegraphing a depth of vulnerability she's seldom shown before.

It hits him: if Nathan is right by any stretch of probability, if that philter isn't a fake, he _could_ make babies for her. It could be a disaster, or a miracle. But it could happen, and she'd _want_ it to happen. The possibility of her happiness—for once entirely in his possession to bestow. How could he deny her that?

Something in him shifts. The molecular mass of resistance building into a twister of pure delirium.

 _Ours._

"Saya?"

"Mm?"

He combs trembling fingers through her hair. "Do you truly want this?"

"Haji..."

"Trying will cost me nothing. But…"

"But what?"

"If it takes," he swallows, "then there is no taking it back, either."

Saya absorbs this on a shaky inhale, near tears and trying not to let it show.

"Would you want to take it back," she asks, "if it happened?"

"I—"

A heavy silence falls between them, within which he realizes he cannot make himself say _Yes_.

Then Saya whispers, "I know we've never considered being parents. At least, I never did. And you... Who were your role models for parenting? Joel—who kept you as an indentured servant. Amshel—who belittled and browbeat you. Your real father—was he good to you? Can you remember?"

He remembers.

He remembers the man who, with a simple barter for bread, transformed his son from personhood to property, and never bothered to learn how he'd fared afterward. He remembers the full thirteen years at the Zoo, where he'd grappled with the acceptance that the lifeblood and brain nestled in his body were not replicas of his father's, or Joel's, or Amshel's, but all his own. He remembers the first time he'd met Sayumi and Sayuri, their eyes bright as spotlights and suffusing him with that sensation of being shoved on stage and expected to play a melody he'd not fully memorized. A _fil di voce_ to fatherhood of the most unexpected sort.

He remembers, but can't make himself speak it. Instead— "It was a long time ago."

"It still matters." The luminosity of Saya's stare doesn't waver. "Right or wrong, your family did... what they believed they had to do. Maybe my reasons are no different. All I know is that I _want_ this. Not just for myself. For both of us. For our future. So _please—_ " Grief spikes her words. " _Please_ say yes."

"Saya—"

It is excruciating to see her in this supplicating role with him. He'd prefer her fierce, and fiercely independent, as she's meant to be. And yet, helpless in ways that go beyond even the bidding of blood, he can deny her nothing.

Even— _especially_ —not this.

Gathering her in, he whispers, "If that is your wish, Saya, talking is not the way to get it."

For a moment, incomprehension leaves her staring. Raising herself to understanding is like navigating through a darkened honeycomb. Then she hits paydirt, rich and golden-sweet. Her eyes widen, a flush blooming along her skin. Her smile is at first shaky, then entire.

"H-Haji..."

Her throat works in a reflexive attempt to say more. Instead she takes his head in her hands. Kisses him, a sweet pressure of lips and a fluid furl of tongue, and he tastes her tears trickling between their mouths.

Her body opens beneath his, but he fights not to succumb. Old habits die never, and for him, there will always be a dizzying awe in this entanglement. When Saya lets him, he loves the slow-melt. Loves the games she lets him play: How close can he get her with just the tips of fingers and tongue across her nipples or her clitoris? How frantically does she plead when he keeps her suspended on the edge of orgasm for entire seconds at a stretch?

Questions and answers that enthrall him. Except tonight isn't about teasing, but tendresse.

She sighs as he traces his way across her body with open mouth and hands, giving in to his appetite in small doses. The sensory-smog of death in the air makes his lungs ache. The mélange of aromas trapped in her silky hair and skin are a glad respite. The sweetest whiff of peaches hiding at her nape. The earthy musk of perspiration under her arms. The intriguing lilt of floral perfume between her breasts. The muted tang of salt on the undersides, where the lace of her bra has left a rosy calligraphy. The waft of tropical humidity that travels down her belly, pooling in her navel, before enveloping him in a different Saya-scent—the oceany sweetness of her arousal.

She twists playfully when he teethes her gossamer panties down. Half-helping, half-hindering—until he loses patience and tears them off with a stinging snap of elastic.

" _Haji_."

Excitement colors her squeal. Everything in him rises on the sound. Then she is fanning her legs shyly apart. Her eyes gleam red under dipped lashes: luminous, wanting, wicked. _"_ Here. Kiss me here. _"_

He needs no coaxing. Catching her ankles, he lifts them so he can bite the ticklish sole of one foot, then the other. Saya giggles, then lets off a little gasp as she is pulled down the bed, her body tenderly split apart like a wishbone. His hands, cupping her kneecaps, are cool and rough. His mouth, tracing along where her dark fleece of curls gives way to coral-cleft heat, is both lewd and tender. And, _God_ , she is wetter than a mermaid's tail. The taste of her—musk and sea-salt—pulls a string of pure hunger through his bones.

Playfully, he blows a semiquaver of cool air across her entrance. Follows with a soft-tongued stripe where greed and generosity hotly mingle.

" _Oh_."

Saya sobs in a gasp, her body stirring in the cradle of his arms. Haji responds by laying his hands flat across her hipbones. His thumbs coax her open in a decadent exposé. He covers her with his mouth and suckles in a slow, sloppy, drawn-out rhythm until her sobs rise on stricken octaves, her head rolling across the pillows and her body pinned by the unrelenting pressure of his mouth.

A lifetime ago, he'd dreamt of her in this room. Just like this. Ready to be devoured, piece by luscious piece.

The reality is infinitely sweeter.

She croons as his attentions grow hungrier—low repetitive croons that spike into an operatic E sharp. Each vocalization leaps inside his skull, perfect pitch. Reading her rhythms is almost like reading cello notes. Catching on how to anticipate and counterpoint, until secret spasms begin to radiate throughout her body and his own gentleness escalates into something wilder, more wicked, his tongue lapping across the slick topography of her, back to front, swirling where she is most sensitive and working her into a gorgeous frenzy until she twists and arches, her spine a lovely legato, her small hands corkscrewing the sheets, tugging at his hair, their palms clasping and fingers interlocking as the cadence of her cries rises to scherzo, staccato, soprano.

Sonata.

When it is over, she lays sweat-filmed and gasping. Her little pink mouth, half-open, is as much an enticement as the darker, hotter, wetter mouth between her widespread thighs.

Haji is helpless to resist.

He shucks his clothes without ceremony, his body glowing pearlescent in the gloom. Shivering, Saya lures him closer. Her fingers play piano scales across his torso, up and then down, encircling him to impart a deep tender squeeze that makes him groan low in his throat. Then their eyes meet, and his throat closes itself completely.

In the slanting glow of the lamps, her face holds a softness that he hasn't seen since before the war. It makes his heart beat raw and ragged behind his ribs, so he feels twenty-five, sixteen, twelve, given something he'd always craved yet never dared to give a name to.

Something almost like—

" _Baise-moi_?" she whispers.

A smile, half of shock and half of amusement, uncurls. Hearing her talk filthy never fails to fascinate him.

" _Comment devrais-je te baiser_?" he asks.

" _Comment veux-tu_?"

" _Cent façons différentes._ " He strokes the curve of his erection across her entrance, up and down, spreading the silky slickness that is gathering inside. " _A vous de choisir._ "

Her sigh is breathy and openmouthed. " _Essayez-les tous—ohhh!"_

He's already hooked her knees high over his arms, sinking into her in a slow torture of increments.

She is so small, yet she takes him in with a wet welcoming clasp of her body, a shivery full-throated sob that he feeds on from her parted lips. Each time feels both brand-new and bittersweet. The way her entire musculature melts, even as his spasms with the shock of exquisite heat washing over him. The way her thighs flex and her nails clutch at him when he stops halfway, gauges the angle, then withdraws in one long, liquid pull only to sink in completely. The way she lets off a giddy little exhale, followed by a squirm that is more possessive than pliant.

Even here, it is she who rules him with a single word or glance.

Cradling her closer, Haji nuzzles his face across hers: forehead and lashes and lips. Lets himself lie heavy for the handful of heartbeats that Saya needs to leap from the shock of fullness and into friction. Memory keys its melody, so her closeness and the rainy day she'd embraced him in this room vibrate in echo of each other.

 _This is a what-if,_ he thinks.

 _This is how it could've been, if we never left the Zoo._

 _If she never made me a Chevalier._

Except if she never did that, he'd be dead, and she'd be in the war, alone or with another, happy or sad or dead or alive or—

As if reading his mind, Saya stirs, her palms traveling along his spine. She whispers, " _Ne t'arrete pas_ ," and he gasps at the way her whole body grips his, a sublime hot squeeze that drags him back to the moment.

Right where he belongs.

They rock together, a lover's-knot twisting from languor into rapture. In the gold-streaked room, Saya's hair flows in an inkburst across the pillows. Her movements flow the same way, a _senza misura_ of eloquence without pattern. Each sigh and tremor is unique. Haji forces his entire sensorium to focus. How to build up to her favorite dance: a lazy undulant grind. How she wants to be kissed: messy and lip-bitten and breathless, until even that becomes too much, and she breaks off on a hitching whine, burying her face into the crook of his neck. How she trembles when his hand dips insinuatingly between their bodies, her cries escalating to a pitch of raw urgency when his thumb strums slickly between her thighs.

"Haji..." Her voice is a thread of itself, a tremolo even he barely hears. "Now. Please."

"Sssh."

He smooths her hair, the cool claw cupping the back of her skull. In these moments he becomes cognizant of the strange delicacy of balance. The power may be hers to wield, the start and finish hers to decree. But the moments in between are entirely his, a lifetime of obedience flattened beneath an intensity that seems pass from his skin and into every shocked cell in Saya's body.

Kissing the whorl of her ear, he whispers, "I want this done right."

"But—" She breaks off on a ragged sound as he sinks in deeper, giving and denying in turns. " _Haji_."

He bites the name gently from her lips. "Yours, Saya. Whatever happens." A family, or none at all. "I will always be yours."

"M-Mine."

"Yes." He rocks in deep enough to make her cry out again, compelling her gaze with his. Both their bodies strung taut with the need for release, vibrating nearly to explosion point. "I do not know what the future holds," he rasps. "But I want to give you everything. If this works..." _If_ —the clause, the caveat, the curse. He leans in, their foreheads touching. "Whatever happens—you will always be my greatest joy."

Tears gather in Saya's eyelids. For a second, she trembles, not as if a climax is coalescing through her, particle by particle, but something darker and heavier. Then her arms and legs encircle him, and her kisses take on an inarticulate ferocity she has seldom shown before, a ferocity that is the Ruben-vase inverse of submission, her entire body offering itself up to him. Her face is the same: broken open in a promise shared entirely with eyes and bodies, entirely without words.

 _This. Us. You and me._

 _Always._

He kisses her back, deep gulping kisses that melt into each other, the way his rhythm melts, a skidding heaviness of bone and a perfect storm of friction that she churns herself around, sobbing wetly, at once stymied and strung out by her need. Then her mouth is against his throat, halfway to biting. He feels the divots of her fangs on his flesh.

"H-Haji…"

She still struggles with the urge to drink. But tonight, tempting her isn't against the rules.

His thumb finds her clitoris, and the rest of his fingers curl inside her, alongside his flesh. Saya ripples and shrieks. Her fangs sink into his shoulder with a liquid _crunch_. Haji's mind dissolves at the first shock of it, the room spinning out, segnos exploding behind his eyes, a dizzying swoop like curtains falling at the stage. She sighs, swallows, spurs him on with twists of her hips, and he groans, fading in and out as their rhythm builds, the wildness seizing him in a different way.

It is like a spell of insanity; he can't bear not to give her everything of himself, over and over, as much as she can take. Wants, in turn, to leave no part of her unclaimed to his touch.

He doesn't finish until she does: a quinquefoliate swoon that blossoms through her, hard tremors, back-to-back, three fluttery, two devastating. Tears burst from her eyes. She crams her knuckles into her mouth, tries to muffle her sounds. But it is a lost cause, her song wild and unmodulated, spilling loose to shoot up his spine until his skull nearly blows apart in pure delight.

It is like hearing Schulhoff's _Erotica_ in Prague.

Afterward, she stays wrapped around him, as if refusing to be uncoupled, uncovered. She is still quivering from the aftermath of her fall; they both are. Trading blood-flavored kisses that are soft, shaky, almost shy.

An exchange of honesty as much as pleasure.

They break off on gasps. Saya's face is dizzied and wildly pretty, mouth a dainty swollen heart. It is a look that fills Haji with pride. Smiling, he enfolds himself tighter around her. Eases the shakes out of them both, with stroking fingers and lingering kisses, until the burn of her eyes fades into a dreamy-dark corona of contentment.

"I guess," she hiccups, "I really needed that."

"We both did."

"We were—supposed to be _quieter_."

"Forgive me." He kisses the corner of her panting mouth, her blush-dappled cheek, one teary eyelid. "I could not help myself."

"Like I could?" Overcome with bashfulness, she buries her face in his neck. " _God_. You make me feel so—"

"What?"

The heat practically shimmers off her. "Whenever we do this, it's like one of those Greek myths that are too filthy to translate."

"Which one?"

"I dunno. Hades and Persephone, maybe. The legend says he abducted her. But I think they were in love." A sigh. "She must've been so sad, leaving him every vernal equinox. He'd be all alone in the Underworld, with nothing to do but wait for her." She curls her hand around his jaw, her thumb stroking his lower lip. "When I'm with you, I can imagine what their reunion was like. The cosmos falling into alignment. Something about their story always got to me."

"Oh?"

" _You_ get to me the same way. You're so—" She gusts warmly. "I'm going to say beautiful, and that doesn't sound right. Except you are."

 _Shouldn't that be my line?_ But he dares not speak and spoil this. He isn't used to being the recipient of her praise. Even if he's heard more elaborate compliments from strangers, anything from her lips—poetry, prose, pornography—is stirring.

Anything, too, that dislodges the splinters of her gloom, so when she smiles and stretches, he is moved to besottedness all over again by the shape of her mouth, the satiny invitation of her neck, her heavily-furled lashes. His body is the same—a full-blooded answer leaping ahead of the question.

It would be embarrassing, if not for her tipsy giggle.

"You want more," she whispers.

"You."

"Want me?"

" _Toujours_."

It is always like this. Something that goes beyond the lineaments of desire, to a sparkage of synchronicity beneath the skin.

Equinox.

She shivers as he eases her closer, rocking in secret slow-motion. Barely moving at all, except they are both so sensitive that the tiniest wet whisper of friction extracts uneven gasps. Nuzzling close, Haji decides he likes her best this way: doused in a lassitude of sweat and sweetness, like—

"Taffy," she slurs musically. " _O-o-oh_."

He exhales a laugh into her hair. "Is your mind—on food?"

She shakes her head, little shudders popping like champagne bubbles under her skin. Her lips against his are the same, sousing his brain, leaving him floating in bliss.

"You," she gasps between kisses. "Just you."

It is a salutation and confession bottled into one.

When they finish, it is different: the surface heat burnt out into the softest possible lather of sensation. With her eyes half-closed and smile half-curled, Saya spends in a series of entrancing tremors, her sighs caught in her throat and her whole body surfacing from the sheets. Haji's own aftershocks come hot and deep, shaking him, wrecking him, then rippling away as he hits that golden crescendo where the world falls away, and there is Saya and him and nothing else, a perfect exchange.

Afterward, he detaches with care to fold himself around her. Imbibing the heat and perfume of her skin, a sweet cloud of pheromones that eclipses the smoky reek in the air. Saya sighs, drawing her knees up. Sighs again, shakier, as his hand finds its way between her damp thighs, palm molding to her—a habitually tender gesture that feels different now.

The kisses he gives her feel different too. Each tongue-tracing sip a shared conspiracy.

When he breaks off, she whispers, "Thank you."

"What for?"

"For saying yes. For… wanting something that's all ours."

 _Ours._

It drops through him again. The quietest bombshell.

It is still hard to credit. If he were an ordinary man, perhaps Haji could envision a baby in his arms, or bouncing on his knee. Except it feels contrived, generic, like something out of a magazine in a doctor's office. He'd helped raise Sayumi and Sayuri. But they were not his, and he'd tried never to succumb to the illusion that it was otherwise. His attachment was avuncular: an echo of the filial warmth he'd felt for Riku.

 _This would be different._

 _This would be…_

More real? More dangerous?

"Are you all right?" Saya whispers.

He isn't sure. But then his eyes flick to hers with something like wonderment, and he says, "Yes." A hitching swallow. "I am just… surprised. By the possibility."

"I hope it's _more_ than that." Her eyes hold a solemn vow. "Once it happens—we'll have a family. A life. One we'll _both_ get to share."

There again. Her obsession with _sharing_ their life. As if children will lend legitimacy to a century-old partnership.

Perturbed, he kisses her forehead. "We already share a great deal."

"We share a history. But I want us to share a _future_. To have the same goals. Do we?"

He wants to say, _Of course_. But as he thinks, the word comes to his mind again.

 _Equinox_.

Like Hades and Persephone, their worlds align with her Awakenings. When she sleeps, it is solstice, solitude, stasis. But children can change that. They can act as tiny stitches binding the subtle breach between them. The cure from both their submerged fears that nothing keeps them together but the past: a well-worn sword in its scabbard, a cello polished to a shine, the taste of blood on the tongue.

 _But if there are children…_

 _If they are ours…_

Saya takes his hand and brings it to her belly. Suddenly the twisted ache in Haji's chest loosens as if it never was.

Quietly: "I want this too, Saya. Not because you do, but because it _is_ you. Because if there are daughters, they will be yours, too."

"Haji..."

"I am sorry if I seem... at a loss. We have rarely been together without a crisis looming. Our moments were always on borrowed time."

"I know that. So?"

He drops his forehead so it rests against hers. "So I am unsure where to begin here. In a world where I have the chance to make you happy." His voice falters, "Even when I was a boy—knowing what I was procured for—I never dared to imagine this. Being with you. Giving you a family."

She smiles—that lovely smile so seldom seen since the war. Haji kisses it for no reason but because he can. She nestles against the cooling bolster of his body, legs entwining. Her feet, under the tangled quilt, are as cold as his. He remembers she'd had chilly little feet in their childhood, too, when they'd curl together under the blankets on winter evenings with mugs of chocolate and their favorite storybook—the fairytales by Perrault and Straparola.

He exhales bittersweetly in the half-dark. _It's come full circle._

Then Saya whispers, "It doesn't have to be so complicated. It can just be something new. Something we make up as we go along. That's what most couples do, don't they?"

"I suppose so."

She presses a kiss below his collarbone, where her cheek rests. "It'll be fine. You'll see. We'll take care of each other. We'll face the scary stuff together."

"Like in the war?"

"It had its share of lessons."

A reminder of their first conversation when they'd moved into the villa. To his reassurances that they would be happy together.

And surely they can be? He remains dubious of the possibility of children. But it's irresistible too, Saya's excitement for it. He cannot quite picture her as a mother. Has never seen parenthood, itself, as a source of joy. In his tribe, that time for women was fraught with risk and illness. His own mother, in her string of six pregnancies—three successful, two not—had certainly found it so.

Yet there is something hopeful, too, in Saya's desire for this.

 _It will be all right,_ he thinks, and kisses Saya to seal the pact. Kisses that melt into each other, deeper and hungrier, until they are clasping each other closer, a sideways sprawl in the coolness of the duvet covers, the drenched heat of their bodies lapping together deliciously, ready to seal that pact again in a different way.

 _It will be all right._

He is not sure if he believes that, but wills it to be so.

For her sake. And for his own.

* * *

 _Hoes, don't do it..._

 _Oh my GAWD :|_

 _Baise-moi?: Fuck me?_

 _Comment devrais-je te baiser? : How do you want me to fuck you?_

 _Comment veux-tu? However you want to._

 _Cent façons différentes. A vous de choisir: A hundred different ways. You choose._

 _Essayez-les tous: Try them all._


	28. Faustian Pact

_Early-ish update!_

 _Continuing with Tórir's very bad no good horriblest of horrible plans, which (hopefully) begins to coalesce into some semblance of logic. Also exploring Saya's slow unspooling of sanity (or is it?) and the supernatural twists that begin taking center stage as the Zoo-arc continues. TW for mentions of rape, as well as surreal/creepy imagery in the latter half of the chapter. Tough convos will be had all around, esp. regarding Riku's murder._

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Liquid Red

931 N Las Vegas Blvd N,

Las Vegas, NV 89101, USA

Tórir is intrigued by the superficiality of Las Vegas.

Everything looks like something else: spray tans, silicone breasts, tooth whiteners, turf grass. Everything _tastes_ like something else: the enticing swirl of whipped cream no more than a cloying afterflavor of preservatives, a sleek green bottle of Perrier yielding less than a flavorless mouthful of burps, a thick steak marbled with fat yet as chewy as rubber between the teeth.

The place appears to have the same absurd attitude about smells. Everything reeks to the point of migraines of a more permissible substitute: a concrete shopping mall laden with the irritating esters of 'Alpine Mist'; a trio of girls scented like a platter of strawberry, apple, mango; trash bags that unfurl with the ridiculous whiff of roses.

The architecture and infrastructure are unsoundly fake as well: rows of houses, perfectly aligned in a grid of balanced, monotonous order—all of them composed of wood and plaster of the most friable kind. Pipes, pylons, platforms all supplying cities with essential water and energy and information—and easy to dismantle with a mere snap of a Chiropteran's fingers.

The superficiality carries through even in the citizens' attitudes. Tórir has not seen so many fake smiles since his days at the port's brothels. The service class are punctiliously polite as if reading from a script; absolute strangers bend over backwards to give you leeway on sidewalks; men and women alike are programmed to meet your eyes and make smalltalk with the standard _Hello/How are you?/Excuse me/Thank you/Go ahead._

The courtesy, to Tórir, seems almost a shield, meant to discourage the visceral terror of real conversation.

 _What a silly place,_ he thinks.

 _What a tepid summation of life._

It isn't First World Existentialism he feels, but a snide subspecies of amusement. The sterile comforts of this nation make his homeworld look like a slum. Yet he grows nostalgic for his island birthplace all the same. Better to be on the edge of life, soaking in nature's gore and glory, than fawning over its simulation from behind a screen between sips of Starbucks lattes.

Surely the humans here cannot be so opiated by the luxury of their incarceration? The surge of violence runs hot in their species' blood. Always has.

Where do they go to shed that civilized veneer? To devolve into the beasts they are?

"Hm."

A nightclub is one layer peeled back to glimpse that twitching core of Id. Men flirting, women flaunting, inhibitions loosened by alcohol or hijacked by drugs, a stumbling façade of courtship enacted in the blood-red carnage of the dancefloor. The smell of sweat, sex, sickness, violence, all merges in the air like a smog.

Seated in the VIP section, Tórir surveys the scene. The establishment where they are meeting their contact is well-guarded. But none of that detracts from its stench of decadence. It is a self-consciously tongue-in-cheek type. Spotlit dioramas meant to mimic medieval torture chambers. Girls with whips. Girls in chains. Girls kissing girls. Girls flogging girls.

 _Clich_ _é_ _at its most blas_ _é_ _,_ Tórir thinks.

In his day, it was an honest transaction. Here, it is dressed up in would-be empowering buzzwords meant to disguise the pitiful sexual apartheid within which Tórir's own mother had become trapped—a collection of orifices for anyone to purchase at the right price. It's the same dynamic here, although there are those who'd argue the opposite. To a true connoisseur, the act of sex involves more than a warm body, after all.

Except it ends the same way: with rumpled sheets, and the snot of semen between the thighs, and the tedious negotiation of payment for services rendered.

Oh, but wait. It's different in First World Nations. There are Rules. There are Safewords. There is Paperwork.

Here in America, even whipping and sexually objectifying one another is done under a veneer of civilized superficiality.

Bored, Tórir sips his glass of water. He wonders if he'll find more interesting sights in a prison, or a slum. For the sanctity of palaces, there must exist gutters, after all…

"Ready, Tórir?"

Carsten enters the lounge, rubbing his hands with jittery enthusiasm. His forehead is shiny with sweat, his clothes are ill-fitting, and he is clearly out of his depth. A nightclub is not his usual haunt. Half the women here, so well-sculpted you can trace with your eyes where the surgeon's knife must have cut, would not deign to even glance his way. The other half would be beyond his price-range to afford for an hour, let alone a night.

Not that it matters. Clubs such as these act as covers. Sex can be the perfect disguise for secrecy of a greater import.

Setting his glass down, Tórir nods.

"Cool, cool." Carsten appropriates the glass, then slops a mouthful of alcohol down his throat. "Hey, you know what we should do? Cut loose when the meeting's over. The place is _stocked_ with slags."

"Slags."

"Pussy. Y'know." Carsten winks, man to monster. "I bet it's been a while for you."

Tórir tweaks a brow.

"Or—or maybe not. I dunno." Carsten's face twitches with something like terror, as if he's understanding the lines crossed every minute, and scrambling for an exit hatch. "I mean, good-looking guy like you. You probably get all the action you want. Taught all the right moves by Queens. All the right things to say—"

Tórir rises from his seat. "You will not speak during the meeting, will you?"

"Huh? Oh no! Not my forte." Carsten chuckles nervously. "IBM-UAWA has a representative who'll take the floor. I'll just chime in about our 'sales pitch.'"

"And myself?"

"Just, uh, stand there and smolder, man." Carsten reaches to clap Tórir's shoulder. Wilts, at Tórir's cool glare, and drops his hand. "Seriously. I think we got this in the bag. Like you said, four phonecalls and a meeting signal they've got one foot in the door already."

"Yes. But the contact sounded… skittish. It is better to tread wisely."

"Right. Right."

They enter the lounge: private, underlit, stylized. Carsten nods to the pleasantly neutral-faced rep from IBM-UAWA. A man called Lee Wèizhuāng, mid-twenties, of indeterminate mixed race, with straight black hair cut short and a neat business-suit sprtized with cologne that doesn't quite conceal a whiff of cats.

Tórir wrinkles his nose. He's never much liked cats.

Outside the lounge, footsteps. A perfunctory knock on the door.

Carsten inhales. "They're here."

Sure enough, the security-detail for their contact steps inside. Eight armed guards. They give no greeting, but fan out, sweeping the lounge for listening devices or concealed weapons. Once they have the All-clear, their leader speaks into an earpiece. There is a pause, before the contact himself steps in.

A tall man, wiry in build beneath a well-cut gray silk suit, his sharp face accentuated by narrow-framed glasses.

Lee Wèizhuāng, the maker of introductions, steps in, "Mr. Argiano. We are so pleased you could come."

"I came only at the request of my good friend, Dr. Collins." Van Argiano fiddles with the shiny wrapper of a candy. His French-accented English is clipped with impatience. "I am told he's working with your organization."

"Dr. Collins is an invaluable asset, and a good friend to our board," Wèizhuāng says. "His research on Chiropteran biology has shown great promise."

Van pops the candy into his mouth. His look is distasteful—less at the confection than at old memory. "Chiropterans. A curious—and _dangerous_ bunch. My dealings with them that cost me years of freedom."

"We assure you, that will not be the case here. Our organization takes pride in protecting its own." Wèizhuāng gestures politely. "Please. Have a seat. Let me introduce you to the two other valued members of our team."

Van makes no move to sit. The candy rolls around in his mouth with an idle click. "I know that one." He gestures to Carsten. "Collins has mentioned him a time or two."

"Professor Collins has been an amazing mentor," Carsten gushes. "He always—"

"Always ends up upstaged by his assistants. So you should be careful." A sly twinkle crosses Van's eyes. "I believe he tried to shoot the last one."

"I-I—"

"Oh! Please don't mistake. The assistant was not _me_. But it bears repeating. The business of handling Chiropterans can be… stressful." Van's narrow gray eyes settle on Tórir. "I do not believe we have met, Monsieur."

"We have not," Tórir agrees.

Wèizhuāng hastens to make introductions. "This is Mr. Tórir. He is—you may say—our jewel in the crown."

"Oh? A generous financier?"

"More than that," Carsten says. "A pureblood Chiropteran."

"Blodfødt," Tórir says, like an adult telling a child not to pick their nose in public.

Van tilts his head, rolling the candy from one of his mouth to the other. But he has gone pale in the muted lights. "Blodfødt? We have new names for them now?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "Is he a Chevalier of Diva's? I thought all of them were killed by the Samurai Man."

 _Samurai Man?_

That must be his nickname for Saya. Tórir nearly smiles.

"I am not Diva's 'Chevalier'," he says. "Although I am told they were a curious bunch."

"Pathologically insane, more like." Van scowls. "When I worked for them, I was expecting lucrative weapons deals. Instead I was saddled with the blame for genocide."

"Genocide is not our purview," Wèizhuāng says, the soul of diplomacy. "We are, however, hopeful for your talents in allowing us to secure subjects."

"Subjects?"

"Three Chiropteran Queens," Carsten says. "Saya Otonashi, and her two nieces."

Van's head jerks up. His scent acquires a fizz of terror. "You—you are mad! You may as well sign your own death warrant! A Chiropteran Queen is doom _personified_. To take on three of them—with Red Shield in the way—"

"We hope to keep Red Shield distracted," Wèizhuāng offers delicately. "The organization is at a vulnerable juncture. Their leader, Joel Goldschmidt, has recently passed. The remainder of their leadership has succumbed to in-fighting. With their attentions focused inward, IBM-UAWA desire to... branch outward."

"Into the same business as Cinq Flèches," Van intrudes. "That is why you contacted me, _non_? I will admit I was intrigued. It is why I agreed to this meeting. Unfortunately, it is exactly why I must decline."

Carsten winces, "Mr. Argiano—"

Van waves a dismissive hand. " _Pardonnez-moi_. It is nothing personal. I have been in biopharmaceuticals my entire life. It was why I originally joined Cinq Flèches. Amshel Goldsmith, whatever his faults, was a genius. My IQ is likely higher than most in this room. But Amshel had business acumen. He could see processes even I cannot." He scowls over the top of his glasses. "Sadly, that genius was unhinged. I have paid for it dearly. I do not wish to pay it further."

"If you would just allow us a trial run—" Wèizhuāng says.

" _Non_. I have made my decision."

"Perhaps," Tórir cuts in. "We could have a discussion in private."

Van flicks a glance at Tórir. Dubious—but also vaguely intrigued. Behind him, Wèizhuāng appears discomfited at losing control of the negotiation, and Carsten is positively brick-red. Recalling the attack on Jordan's security detail, no doubt.

Tórir has no intention of resorting to violence. His attack on Jordan's guards was to prove a point. This is a different game, with a different set of rules. Van Argiano seems no soft target to seduce, but he is easier than others Tórir has dealt with.

A little easier is all it takes.

He gestures to the balcony, his face held indelibly expressive. "One on one, perhaps? There is no need to send your guards out."

"One on one? No group ambush? How bold." Van's words are snide, but he gives a tiny smile that affirms, _Fine, I'll bite._

When Tórir extends an arm, Van follows him through the sliding doors to the balcony. Darts of phosphorescent blue and red hit slantwise. The dance-floor stretches out below: a toxic tank of spilled alcohol, stale perfume and body odor. The humans gyrate in an ever-shifting mass. Tórir imagines for a moment one monstrous, multi-limbed creature, networked with thousands of veins, strung together to the point of snapping, ready to flood the club in blood-colored darkness…

"Well, _monsieur_." Van leans against the railing. His candy clicks around inside his mouth. "You have the floor. For the next ten minutes."

 _I only need five,_ Tórir thinks, but does not say. "You are suspicious our endeavor will fail."

Van's shoulders lift infinitesimally. "Once bitten, twice shy. Is that not the saying? Understandably, I am wary of research firms that dabble with unpredictable elements."

"By unpredictable you mean 'Chiropterans.'"

" _Oui_. Terribly complex organisms. And treacherous."

"A reasonable caution. But—" A flicker of smile. "They are not complex to me."

"Because you're a Chevalier?" Van meets Tórir's eyes with a wry and somehow warning look. "That is hardly enough to qualify you. I knew five Chevaliers. Each one clever and ruthless. Where are they now? _Dust_. The Queen—Saya—picked them off one by one."

"So she did." Tórir's smile fades. "Just as I have picked off my share of Queens."

Van barks out a laugh. "Now you are shamelessly fibbing."

"On the contrary."

"All the Chevaliers—the Goldsmiths, who served Diva—are _dead_."

"As I said before, I am not Diva's Chevalier." Tórir's face remains turned toward the dancefloor, his tone at the cusp between boredom and amusement. "I was created by a different Queen entirely. Centuries ago. In an age when Queens ruled among mortal men."

" _Connerie_!" Van scoffs.

" _Non, c'est pas des conneries_ ," Tórir says succinctly. " _Alors tais-toi et_ _é_ _coute-moi._ "

Van bristles, more in shock than indignation. Tórir continues, "I have never met Amshel Goldsmith. But I have read of his exploits. I was impressed but not overtly so. His tactics were designed to benefit his business solely in the short-term. He planned to use his... half-bred Chiropterans to cull the human herd. However, he would have been better off collaborating _with_ them."

"Collaborating?"

"Humans outnumber 'Chiropterans' in this era, as in the past," Tórir says. "Their governments, with finesse and firepower, could destroy the last few that remain—rendering the species extinct. Or, they could appreciate that Queens are more useful a weapon than the... Corpse Corps, is that not what you called your super-soldiers?" When Van doesn't answer, Tórir continues. "IBM-UAWA share the same goal as Cinq Flèches. The creation of biological weapons. Super-soldiers to fight in wars. That is why they wish to acquire live Queens as test subjects. My goal, however, is different."

Van's offhandedness shades into scrutiny. "Different, how?"

"I find it interesting that so many organizations have examined the biologies of Queens, but not their baseline nature. Not as immortals but as war-weapons." Neutrally, "Do you know that Chiropterans are one of the few species that seek revenge? It is not a simplistic act of self-protection. They _enjoy_ it. In the old days, Queens regularly declared war on rival houses. Their soldiers would invade enemy roosts and attack their young. They would burn down fortresses. Destroy entire cities in a single night. War was part of their social structure. Encoded, practically, into their DNA."

"What are you trying to say?" There is a note of disquiet in Van's voice.

"I am saying we should embrace that nature. Unleash it, and control it. The better to accomplish our goals." Tórir meets Van's eyes. "Queens, in the grip of instinct, are the ideal tool of warfare. Worth easily a hundred Corpse Corps. Relentless. Remorseless. They can withstand chemical attacks. Bullets. Bombs. They are the ultimate shapeshifters. Free them into a city and they are traceless. They can be used for espionage. For assassinations. Coups. Body-swaps. Their gifts could tear countries down in short order."

"My God." Van's heart pumps unevenly: Tórir can hear the interspersed beats between the nightclub's music. "Use Queens as weapons? You _are_ mad!"

"Oh?"

"What makes you think it could even be _done_?! They are not easy to control—"

"Unless in their Long Sleep. Awaken a Queen during that phase and she will fight indiscriminately. Then pass out shortly after. Allowing her handlers to relocate her elsewhere." Tórir smiles with rich cruelty. "They are equally malleable once their Long Sleep ends. Without memory. Without defense. A blank slate upon which we can inscribe whatever we choose. I have done so, many times, in the past."

"My God," Van whispers again.

It isn't disbelief but dismay. He realizes that Tórir is in earnest.

Tórir stays silent, letting the other man spin in the uneasy gyre of his thoughts. Reaching into his coat, Van untwists another candy between trembling fingers. The little sphere slips from its wrapper and falls.

Tórir intercepts it in midair. The motion is so swift it happens in an eyeblink.

"Mr. Argiano," he says. "You have lost over fifteen years of your life to Chiropteran Queens. Fifteen years, as penance for your unwitting service to their cause."

Matter-of-factly, he opens his palm. The candy, nestled there, glitters like a pearl in the LED lights.

"Surely," Tórir says, "You would welcome this chance for payback?"

Van eyes the candy warily, as if, during the transfer, Tórir has imprinted an unknown quantity of poison across its surface. His words come with effort.

"Payback is attractive, of course. But you must understand. I have been trying to keep a low profile. After the disaster at Cinq Flèches, I have no desire to take more risks than I need to."

"You have my guarantee there won't be a repetition of that," Tórir says. "IBM-UAWA require only your expertise in genetics. That is why you were brought to the negotiating table. The rest is my responsibility to accomplish. And when I do, we will all partake in the victory together. You have my word."

There is a great deal of truth to the promise. Which always makes it the most failsafe of lies.

Van's face shows doubt, then irresolution, then temptation. Finally, he reaches to pluck the candy from Tórir's palm.

"I hope," he says, popping the candy into his mouth. "Our next venue for discussion will be less …public."

His manner is would-be casual. But with each _crunch_ of candy, Tórir hears the concession. The signature written in inviable ink on their Faustian pact.

"Of course." Tórir's smile is civilized superficiality at its zenith. "I am open to suggestions."

* * *

Le Grande Maison

Route de Libourne D243,

33330 Bordeaux, France

 _Saya_.

Heavy wind scallops the lake, distorting the fishhook of moon reflected in the water. A cool lace of dew whitens the grass, broken by imprints of Saya's bare feet as she walks the Zoo's grounds. Her shadow is blotted out by the maze of tall pine trees. Moonlight sparkles through the zigzags of their leaves.

 _Come on, Saya._

 _Let's play._

The words are a silky sibilation, barely audible over the wind. Saya shivers. Her legs and arms are rough with gooseflesh. She's wearing a plain cotton nightdress. Her necklace, with the red winkling of stone, dangles down to her breasts. It is what she'd fallen asleep in, while Haji went downstairs with Kai, V and Sachi for a security check. She remembers him kissing her goodnight and going out. But she doesn't remember getting out of bed. Doesn't remember coming here.

 _Saya._

 _Come see me_ _…_

The grass is ticklish and satiny beneath her feet. The scent of wet earth leeches out, perfuming the air. Saya takes a deep breath. It is a familiar smell: complicated yet comforting.

She is backtracking as if through childhood memories, revisiting the spots where she and Haji had played as children. The grove of apple trees where they'd share a two-person blind man's bluff. The highest peak of the hills, where they'd spread a blanket in the late evening and string constellations among the stars. The barn where they'd take shelter during rainstorms, wringing out their wet clothes and sharing sips from the flask of brandy Haji had filched from Amshel's study. The old groundskeeper's shed, behind which they'd secretly peeked in on the cook locked in an amorous embrace with the seamstress. Afterward, Haji had bashfully stammered that the two ladies were probably _Just good friends._

 _Good friends like we were, sister?_

Saya hears Diva's voice as if right behind her ear. Her giggle, her breath on her cheek, are as real as the sky and the stars.

 _Hurry, Saya._

 _You saved the best for last._

The last place. Diva's tower.

The ruins grow larger with each step. A hulking medieval exoskeleton glossed in moonlight. The tower looms into the sky, its parapets crumbling, its bricks eroded, its surface overrun with the mysterious allure of blue roses. To the best of Saya's knowledge, they shouldn't be growing here anymore. Diva is dead. The blue roses should have withered away with her.

Yet there they are, flowering into ethereal fullness. The whole space is suffused with their scent. A sensory echo of Diva's trapped spirit.

 _Come on, Saya..._

Her feet carry her to the tower. Saya has no choice but to go along. As she draws closer, she realizes the tower isn't simply shrouded in silver moonlight. It is _smothered_ , with tentworms and cobwebs, the infestation transforming the structure into a nightmarish mummified entity. Up close, the wafting perfume of blue roses can't conceal the dank, sour undernote of decay.

 _Hurry up, Saya._

 _I want to play._

Saya climbs the worn stone steps. Inside, the perfect darkness is broken by the wedges of white moonlight spilling through the windows. Wind, trapped in the tower, echoes like a gloomy dirge. Goosebumps prickle her skin. But her body, as if caught in a spell, goes up the winding stairs.

A swarm of memories sweeps through her. Another century, another self: the clatter of her excited steps across the stones. Her skirt a plume of pink around her legs. Her shoes going in and out of the hem, a flash of mauve, a layer of petticoat, a flash of mauve again. The ornate brass key clutched in her hand. Fitted into the massive lock. Turned with a hollow echo that tremors through her whole body.

 _You're the one who set me free, Saya._

 _So we could be together._

The corridor to Diva's door stretches impossibly long. A patchwork of moonlight and shadow across the floor, where the windows break into walls then windows again. Then there are no windows and darkness closes around her, deep-water shades like at the bottom of the sea.

 _Come on, sister!_

Diva's laughter peals off the stones and resonates everywhere.

Ahead of Saya, like the goalpost of a race, the door.

The door to Diva's cell. The place where the nightmare first began. Where Saya has returned, time and time again, in her dreams, trying to puzzle out where it went wrong, what she could have done differently. Pacified Diva into being let out another time? Stayed with her, and taken her by the hand, playing her Vergil in this strange new world?

Would things have ended happily then? Could they have been friends?

 _It's too late to go back now,_ Diva sighs.

Saya's body, caught in the grip of an awful compulsion, moves to the door. Reaching out, she grabs the handle, the metal corroded with grit beneath her palm. With a convulsive heave, she wrenches it open. Rotten hinges creak shrilly. A trickle of moist dirt puffs out.

Inside, a perfect square of blackness. But not emptiness. She smells a warm, animal musk. Something alive. Something moving.

 _Saya..._

A pale shape coalesces from the darkness. A ghost? No. A nightdress like hers. It falls over a body that is molded to similar contours: daintily girlish, but with an impression of hidden strength. Small feet jut from the hem of the nightdress. Little hands are clasped together in front. Their nails are rimmed darkly. With dirt?

No—blood.

"At last. We're together, Saya."

The figure steps closer. Saya glimpses the face. And freezes.

"…Oh God."

Diva's dark hair is different. Thinner, and scraggly, with patches of pale scalp showing in places. She smiles, and her teeth jut like broken tombstones in her mouth, cracked and grayed. Her eyes are filmed as if with quicklime, a putrid glaze of milky blue. Blinded?

Rotting.

"This is what you wanted, right?" Diva says sweetly. "For us to be together. Always."

Saya staggers back. Terror snaps the string at her spine.

"No…"

"Come closer, Saya."

The voice is not Diva's. It belongs to someone else, older, fiercer, wiser. Someone as familiar to Saya as blood itself.

"Don't be afraid." A pale hand reaching out. Cool fingers curling around her arm. "I have much to tell you."

"Stop…"

"You must be fortified for what lies ahead. For yourself. For the children."

" _Please_ _—_ _no_ _—_ _!"_

"Daughter of mine—"

" _Let me go_!"

Saya jerks her arm free. The force sends her stumbling back, tripping over the hem of her nightgown. She falls, cracking her head against the damp stones, then darkness swoops in and she is falling, tumbling through emptiness, and the watery music of Diva's song fills her ears, and…

 _Thump._

She lands on her back, flailing and struggling, and sits up with a cry. She's got to escape the tower, got to get away from—

"…"

She is in the Soleil Suite. Sprawled on the carpet, where she's fallen off the bed, her legs entangled in the blanket. Her body is drenched in sweat; her nightgown is soaked with it.

With a low grunt of distress, she kicks the blanket off, sitting up. Six days since she's been at the Zoo, and each night her dreams have been a bloody wash of terror. Granted, they are always terrible. But it's a standard-issue nightmare she's accustomed to: fire and bodies, Diva's voice, the dark ripcurl of snakes.

Here, they've taken on a technicolor dimension that is prophetic.

Shivering, she drags a hand through her tangled hair. Exhaustion clogs up her body. She longs to return to bed. Since agreeing with Haji to start a family, she needs all the sleep she can get. Her Chevalier has been extremely … diligent … about keeping his promise to start a family. By night, he slips out for reconnaissance across the Zoo's sprawling grounds. But he always returns by the tip of dawn to coax her awake. A kiss, a caress, a question-mark. _May I?_ _—_ _Yes, please._

Each coming-together is in stages, because it needs to be. If startled out of sleep on a bad night, she can turn savage.

Lately, those bad nights are nearly every night.

On Saya's phone at the bedside table, a row of notifs flash. A cat gifset from Ezra—he tends to send those as dorky but well-meaning mood lighteners. There are also messages from Dee and David, back in Okinawa. They've been sending her a steady stream of texts, updating her in real-time about the search for the mysterious Chevalier.

So far, it's borne little success. Whoever the stranger was, he's vanished into the woodwork. No new sightings—or recent attacks on civilians.

 _Meaning he's lying low_ _—_ _or somewhere else._

Saya doesn't know where. But she suspects, in her bones, she'll see him again.

She reaches for her phone. David's text reads: _Given the team an All Clear. Okinawa base is secure. Will be flying in to Bordeaux tmrw._

Relief and ambivalence pass through Saya. On the one hand, she's thankful they'll be leaving soon. The Zoo, too strange and too charged with unhappy significance, feels like a box she's outgrown. But on the other hand, the search has yielded no closure. She wants to track down the Chevalier. Learn who he is, and where he came from.

 _One thing at a time,_ she thinks, staggering to her feet.

And freezes.

Her feet are crusted with dirt. Between the toes, beneath the nails. The skin is reddened and raw in a few places, where she's scraped herself against rocks.

 _What_ _…_ _?_

Heart thudding, Saya sinks into the mattress. Her mind has passed into a stage beyond incredulity, into a kind of unfastening, like ropes snapping from keeping too much tied together. Laughter—a capering cousin of hysteria—bubbles up. She clamps her mouth shut to keep it down.

 _It was only a dream._

 _It_ had _to be._

 _Otherwise_ _—_

Then she hears it. The faraway tinkle of a song.

 _Diva's_.

Saya's whole body freezes. She feels sunk into an ice-floe, chilled to the bone. Yet she stands without wobbling.

 _Where is it coming from?_

Walking to the source of the sound, she knows no bravery. Her only shield is shock.

The song isn't coming from her room. It is the one across from her: Sayumi and Sayuri's. So quiet that only a Chiropteran could catch it—the lightning-jags of _crescendo_ and the brewing storm-clouds of _appassionato_ pouring through the gaps in the door, like a whiff of petrichor that hangs electrically in the atmosphere.

Balling her hand into a fist, Saya knocks.

There is a thump, and the song stops. She hears a flurry of movement. Sayumi and Sayuri's fierce exchange of whispers _, Told you not to play it!_ _—_ _I thought she was asleep?!_

After a long pause, during which Saya inhales to steady her ricocheting heartbeat, the door opens a crack. A beautiful blue eye stares out, connected in a narrow plumb-line of long black hair to a second, equally beautiful brown eye, like a vignette portrait of two Peeping-Janes.

"Auntie Saya," Yumi chirps. "Sorry about—"

"What are you doing?"

Saya doesn't mean to sound angry. But there is no mistaking the supercharged guilt in the air. Sayumi and Sayuri may have the look of doe-eyed innocence down pat. But Saya has been weaponizing it since her days in the Zoo, to wheedle allowances from Joel and skirt the blame for thumbtacks in the governess' chair and read mice in Amshel's teacups.

She knows trouble when she smells it.

"It—it's nothing," Yuri stammers. "We were only."

"Let me in. What were you listening to?"

The twins exchange glances. Defeated, they open the door.

Saya steps inside—and gasps. A black samsonite document bag, with Red Shield's insignia, is cracked open on one of the beds. Files and photographs are scattered everywhere. On Yuri's laptop, a USB is plugged in. A grainy, badly-framed recording of Diva at the Met concert is paused onscreen. Her sister is in that theatrically-awful batwinged gown, face uplifted to the stage and eyes closed, lashes a luxuriant shadow upon her cheeks.

Staring at her, Saya remembers the seething hellhole that Lincoln Center had become: frightened moans, roaring Chiropterans, bodies strewn and blood splattered across a ruined interior. The brilliance of the recollection makes her shudder.

"We're so sorry," Yumi says. "We thought you were asleep."

Saya gestures to the files. "This—this is—"

Yuri and Yuri sigh, losing their surface cheer.

"Documents. On the D67 case," Yuri says. "Everything recorded in Joel's Diary."

"We didn't have the clearance to access it," Yumi explains. "Not while Joel-san was alive. That was the agreement between him and Kai."

"But now that he's gone, Red Shield granted us authorization," Yuri finishes. "We wanted… to see the files."

"Does Kai know?" Saya asks.

They shake their heads, wide-eyed.

"You _can't_ tell him!" Yumi says. " _Please_ , Auntie Saya!"

"We know he did his best," Yuri says. "He protected us for a reason. But we're old enough to know the truth now. About our past. About our _selves_. It's the first time—" She stops, swallowing.

"What?" Saya asks.

"It's the first time we've _seen_ her. Our mother."

The words detonate a depth-charge of shock through Saya.

"You mean, you've never—?"

 _Seen her face. Heard her voice._

The twins shake their heads. Tears glitter in Yumi's eyes. Yuri's own grief is something speechless, more powerful than tears. Saya guesses that accessing the files was her idea. She's going to be a mother soon. But she has no frame of reference for raising daughters. No memory of being a daughter to her own mother.

In light of that, can Saya fault her for yearning to understand where she and her sister came from?

Nathan's voice reverberates in her ears. _It's time to get in touch with your roots._

Roots knotted through Saya's body, and the twins', a web of pulse sprung from the same source-material. The bloodline of Queens, and murderers, and martyrs. Their bodies are pumped to bursting with everything it means to be afflicted with their peculiar curse.

Saya's throat closes, and there is pain when she speaks. "…All right."

The girls stare at her.

"All right." Resistance and acceptance twist inside her. Acceptance wins out. "I won't tell Kai. But I'll tell you. Everything you want to know. Everything… that helps fill in the gaps."

 _Including the truth about Diva and Riku?_

She shivers, her good sense begging even as her body braces itself to leap unhesitatingly into whatever is ahead. Reaching out, she takes Yumi and Yuri's hands. Tugs, gently, and leads them toward the pile of documents.

In the subsequent moments, her throat feels raw and her eyes burn like lugnuts in her skull. Talking, and sometimes fighting a spasm of memory, she tells the twins about Diva. About her days in the tower. About how she was freed. About her Chevaliers, and their schemes, and Saya's battles with them.

It doesn't come easy. She's spent too many freeze-dried years bottling up her emotions about her twin. Brooding over the war, without letting it go.

But now, in a slow-motion erosion, the walls are dropping away. In the emptiness left behind, there is only a sluice of misery, and after-echoes of a terrible rage whose real name is loss.

Loss of a family. Of a sister. Of a home.

In a little while, Yumi and Yuri are in shocked tears. From the mini-bar in their room, they've gotten out a bottle of Bordeaux Rosé, and three glasses. Their tongues loosened by wine and grief, they proffer questions, each one like a tumor that's been metastizing in their bones. Things that Saya senses have gone unanswered since their childhood. They don't fault Kai for it. He's been honest to the best of his ability, but also determined to protect them from the barbed-wire that encroaches the truth.

Bit by bit, that truth disgorges itself.

"And him?" Yuri peers, watery-eyed, at a photo from the manila envelope. "Who was that?"

Saya stares at the slick celluloid, printed from Red Shield's database. A handsome man in a pristine white suit, stepping out of a blue Jaguar, with a laughing Diva on his arm. In the sunlit backdrop of the Paris streets, his hair sparkles as if freshly-blonded; his eyes are an abstracted green over the rims of his sunglasses, gazing down at his Queen.

"Solomon." The name comes soft as a kiss to Saya's lips. "Diva's Chevalier."

Yumi sniffles, her head resting on the thin ball of Yuri's shoulder. "Is he the one who defected? Because he was in love with you?"

Saya blinks. "How do you—?"

Yumi and Yuri look sheepish. "We heard Kai and Mao talking about it once," Yuri explains. "He'd abducted you during a battle. When… our mother was trying to make Kai her Chevalier."

"I think—" Saya bites her lip. It is difficult to talk about those years. They are complicated in a way that can't withstand their condensation to a few needful sentences. And she is embarrassed, always, to think of Solomon. His charisma and ruthlessness. The love implicit in his act of renunciation. Talking of him still summons a blush to her cheeks.

"I think he truly cared for Diva," she says. "I think she did too. But not the way he needed."

"So—what? He just put you up there on her empty pedestal?" Yumi exchanges glances with Yuri. Their mood goes from gravel-gray to cherry-pink. "That's kinda creepy."

"It was. From a certain angle." Saya sighs. "But from another, it was understandable. Chevaliers are always drawn to one Queen… or to another."

The twins exchange understanding looks.

Saya manages a tiny smile. "I guess you two would know. Otherwise Yuri wouldn't be pregnant at all."

Yuri ducks her head. Spots of pink decorate her cheeks. "It was Yumi's birthday present for me."

" _What_?"

Yumi shrugs with feigned nonchalance. "She gave me a gorgeous Cartier watch. I'd had my eye on it for _ages_. In exchange, I wanted to get her something… special. I knew she'd wanted to start a family with Sachi, since her hibernation would be getting close. I also knew they'd be too shy to bring it up with V or myself. So I made the offer first."

Saya raises her eyebrows. "So you gave her V as a present."

Yumi lets off a red-faced sporfle. "Only for one night!"

"Once was enough," Yuri sighs. "It was like riding a monster truck. Fun for a few hours. But totally _extra_ for everyday life."

"Prude," Yumi mutters.

"Size Queen."

"Better dickmatized than dogmatized."

"Can't argue with you there," Yuri relents.

Saya lets off a rueful laugh at the predictability of their banter. Then: "What about you, Yumi? Will you and Sachi—?"

"Oh." Pink spots of color appear on Yumi's cheeks. She ducks her head, half-careless, half-churlish, and says, "Maybe _some_ day. But not today."

Yuri smiles behind her hand. "V's a big man-baby about sharing his Queen. He'd make heap big thunder."

Yumi sticks out her tongue. "Jealous."

"Amused. Monogamy's a weird look for you."

"Hey, I'll try anything once."

"That kind of anti-QED."

"That's not what QED applies to."

"Yumi, you don't even know what QED _means_."

"Sure I do!" she huffs. "It means quod erat… donkeykongadonk."

" _Demonstrandum_."

"Yeah, yeah. Get smacked with a dictionary."

"Better than a dong."

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it."

Saya can't help it. She laughs again. But it fades when her eyes return to the pile of photographs. Among them, in glossy black, are ultrasounds that Julia had transferred to a CD when she'd about-faced and rejoined Red Shield. A sonogram of Yumi and Yuri, when they were just a tiny bombshell of possibility in Diva's belly.

Yumi follows her gaze. "So …this is us?"

"Mm."

They pore over the picture, their dark heads together. And a moment comes to Saya, stolen from ugly memory. Their little bodies ensconced in cocoons, big eyes glistening with tears. And the point of her sword, trembling over them. Suspended between hope and heartbreak, as she'd contemplated ending their lives for good.

Tears start into her eyes. Yumi's words jerk her back into the moment.

"…don't understand how…"

"Wh-what?"

Yumi frowns at the ultrasounds. "I still don't understand. How'd our mother conceive us? It was impossible with her own Chevaliers. Right?"

The words dry up in Saya's throat. "I—"

"We always thought…" Yuri tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. Her words are adrift in uncertainty. "I mean, Yuri and I discussed it as teenagers…"

"On many a stoned night," Yumi agrees.

Yuri's lips twitch. But her earnest expression doesn't falter. "We wondered if our father was Haji. I mean—we kinda look like him. At least I do. And he's always taken an interest in our welfare."

"Like a bodyguard who never takes the day off," Yumi mutters.

"Exactly. He was never touchy-feely the way Kai was. A kiss on the cheek was an event. But—" Yuri smiles. "He always made sure to spend time with us. Read to us. Help with homework. Show up on birthdays. And right from the start, we felt… I dunno. Drawn to him. In a different way from Kai."

Again, Saya thinks of her conversation with Nathan. About the attraction between Queens, and their sister's and aunt's Chevaliers. Except in this instance, it's been sublimated into a peculiar father-daughter bond. She stares at the twins, at the glow of hope in their eyes. She remembers Kai's reluctance to part with the sordid truth, which could screw them up for life.

She could show kindness, and lie to them. A white lie, a necessary lie. Something to make their origins seem decent. Something to solidify their attachment to Haji. Something that will lend the illusion of good to their world, within a hidden core of wrongness.

Or she could tell them the truth.

Tell them the truth, and potentially shatter their semblance of happy family life. Expose them to the subcurrent of violence in their past, and by proxy in their selves. Hadn't Nathan so baldly stated that Saya and Diva were a product of coercion and imprisonment too? It had stunned Saya, but not scarred her. Why would it? As a matter of basic survival, she'd grown accustomed to thinking of Chiropterans as monstrous, evil, grotesque. Her own origins fitting with this narrative hadn't dismayed her—but deepened her determination to rewrite the script.

To have children with Haji, who'd be raised with _love_.

Like Kai has done for Yumi and Yuri. He'd taken on the duty of their father. And as a father, he'd shielded them from the ugliness of the world. But he'd also endowed them with the strength particular to the Miyagusukus. The gift to take a block of darkness in the palm of their hand, and keep rubbing its surface until light shines from within.

"Saya?" Yumi and Yuri are staring at her, their faces moon-pale. "What's wrong?"

Saya takes in a deep breath. Time unspooled slowly since their conversation began; now it's catching up too fast.

Or maybe the past is. She can't outrace it. She can only hope for a better tomorrow.

"Yuri...Yumi..." Her voice is gentle as a mother's. "There's something you should know."

The girls exchange glances. In the voice of prescience, Yuri says, "It's not Haji. Is it?"

Saya shakes her head. She's grateful the girls are thirty, not thirteen, and have the wisdom that goes with a full life. She's grateful Kai isn't here, to scramble in and silence her, because she doesn't have the right to break this news. She doesn't have the right—but the girls do.

A right to the unadulterated truth.

Wordlessly, she reaches out her hands. The girls scoot closer, and clasp them in their own. It is a bridge of warmth, allowing her voice to flow despite its hitches. Without taking her eyes off Yuri and Yumi, she tells them everything. About Diva's wish for babies, About her loneliness. About how Riku—their ostensible uncle—had caught her eye, and sparked her darker instincts.

Stalked. Violated. Killed.

There is crying, between the exhaustive recollection. Not hers, but Yumi and Yuri's. At first Yumi had gone still and fierce, her eyes picking up an angry gloss. Yuri, meanwhile, had sunk into herself, her eyes in a twilit spectrum of denial. But as Saya went on, as the documents spread around them corroborated her tale, there was no hiding from it.

Their mother, whom they'd never know, had been a succubus.

By the time Saya is finished, they both have broken down, in harsh, wet sobs.

Saya's throat is a knot, but her own eyes are dry. The sensation seizing her is closer to a _mea culpa_ than a confession.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, "I'm sorry for unloading this on you. There is a reason we kept it secret. It wouldn't have been fair to—"

"Don't be stupid!" Yumi snaps. Her eyes are blazing, not with rage but sorrow. "It you hadn't—Saya, my _god_. I always wondered why Kai was so tightlipped about it. I'd catch him alone in the kitchen sometimes, with his eyes all red. He'd always say it was nothing. But he never mentioned his little brother either. He never—oh—oh _Christ_ —!"

She dissolves into fresh sobs. Saya draws her closer, stroking her hair.

"I'm so sorry," she repeats. "There's no easy way to take this. For... so many reasons. But please believe me—" words Haji had once spoken flow off her tongue. "—whatever disasters happened in the war, you're _not_ one of them. Neither of you. Kai did his best to love and protect you. And you're both like him in so many ways. You're like Riku too. All his kindness. His strength. But you aren't the silver lining of some stupid parable. You're both— _you_. So wonderfully, perfectly you. Nothing can change that."

"We're our mother, too," Yuri says quietly.

Saya blinks. The younger girl is solemn, and clear-eyed. In her gaze, Saya sees reflected anguish, and a struggle against the future and her fears. But also her acceptance, as of a natural disaster that has burgeoned unimaginable damage, but also sprung up something astonishingly rare and green.

"We're our mother," she repeats, "in the way she didn't get to be. Didn't Kai always tell us, Yumi, about stories of good children who came from bad parents? And Haji? Didn't he always say biological determinism was a crock?"

Yumi hiccups. "That does explain all the _Star Wars_ reruns."

A ghost of a smile crosses Yuri's face. But her eyes are pensive. "I always wondered. Why everyone in Red Shield treated us like wunderkinds. Like we were some miracle of goodness giving lie to…to some awful evil thing."

Saya tightens the clasp of her hand around Yuri's. Against her old reflex for black-and-white, she says, "Your mother wasn't _evil_ , Yuri. No more... and no less... than I am. We've both done terrible things. We both felt them necessary at the time. And for Diva, _you_ were necessary. Both of you. There was nothing... evil… in the way she loved you. To her last, her only thoughts were for _you_."

"Good sometimes comes from bad," Yumi whispers, dabbing her wet eyes. "Kai always said that. I could never figure out what he meant. Until now." She shivers. "But what if—it doesn't last? What if some twenty years down the line, something turns us into—"

"It won't," Saya promises. "I was afraid of the same thing. I still am. Not of you two, but myself. But—" She encircles Yumi closer, and tightens her fingers around Yuri's. "I swear I won't let anything happen to you. Diva wasn't given the choice be… anything but what she became. But as long as I'm alive, I'll make sure you have every choice. You _and_ your children."

Yuri jitters out a breath. Her fingers tremble in Saya's. "I think… that's another reason I was afraid."

"Afraid?"

"To tell you. You were at war with Diva for years. I always thought: She must've done something…unforgivable… for you to hate her that much."

"I don't... hate your mother." Saya hesitates, then tugs Yuri closer, circling her in her other arm. The girls nestle against her as trustingly as babies. The same woman who'd nearly murdered them. She squeezes them even tighter when she remembers it. "Please. Don't run her down like that. You weren't there. You don't know... how complicated it was. Before we fought, I tried to change her mind. She tried to change mine. I failed. I think... I _wanted_ to fail. Because I hoped to finish it all. I hoped to die with her."

She forces herself to meet Yumi and Yuri's eyes, even as the girls, with no artifice at all, look exactly like Diva, all uncanny comprehension.

"When the fight was over, Diva was gone. And I wasn't. So I asked Haji to carry out a promise I'd forced him to make. To kill me, after I'd done the same to you—so there'd be no Chiropterans left. No wars because of our blood." A wavery smile. "Kai talked us out of it. With curses and punches. He reminded us that sometimes good things come from a lot of hurt and ugliness. But the best way to heal that hurt is to keep living. I couldn't see how at the time." _Sometimes I still can't._ "But Kai made me brave enough to hope. And Haji—"

"He said he loved you." Yuri's wet eyes twinkle. "And you said you wanted to live."

"How do you—?"

"Joel-san. That was his favorite story of you. He told it to us often."

"He was in the opera box," Saya remembers. "He watched the whole thing. Right to the end."

Somehow, it's the memory of Joel, and of that awful, astounding night, that cracks apart her shell of ennui. The tears beat against her like the tide, gathering and spilling down her eyes. She'd started out holding Yumi and Yuri. Both now they are holding _her_. Warmth spreads where their bodies touch, an unexpected sense of belonging like Saya hasn't felt since the day she'd given Diva a name in exchange for her song…

"You should probably know..." She tries a shaky smile. "I'm a little crazy right now."

"You won't be forever," Yuri says.

"And we won't hold it against you in the meantime," Yumi adds. "Whatever it is, it'll work itself out."

" _Nankurunaisa_ ," Saya murmurs.

The two girls let off identical, eyerolling laughs. They've heard the mantra so often it's tattooed into their DNA.

Circling them in, Saya is reassured that the truth about their mother, no matter how disquieting, isn't a catastrophe that will unravel their sense of selves, that will go on hurting them for years and years afterward. They were born from a disastrous union, but their essence is composed of Kai's ferocious affection, Riku's sweet sincerity, and Haji's patient wisdom. Whatever setbacks they endure, they'll be all right.

 _What about you, sister?_ Diva whispers in her ear.

Shivering, Saya shuts her eyes. Shuts them tight, and drops a kiss to Yumi and Yuri's foreheads. Better to keep her attention on the twins, on Yuri's pregnancy, and on helping them learn from their mother's tragedy, so it will shape the trajectory of their lives for a better tomorrow.

And, by proxy, her own.

On reflex, her fingers go to Yuri's belly. They rest there, as if something might transfer to her own body by tactile osmosis.

 _Please._

 _Let good come from the bad._

It is a prayer composed not with the fervency of absolution—but the grimness of a Faustian pact.

* * *

 _Way to end the chapter on a happy note :|_

 _Jokes aside, I do reiterate that the Zoo-arc - and the chapters concluding Act II - are pretty grim, and deal with a lot of uncomfortable content. My hope is less to introduce wangst for the sake of wangst, than to explore the places that suffering will take our characters. That said, I also don't want it to be a total angst trainwreck, so let me know if there's certain areas you'd like to see lightened in tone or otherwise improved._

 _Have a great weekend, and review pretty please!_


	29. Home

_Happy Hump Day, everyone! :)_

 _This was meant to be posted during the weekend, but I'm in the process of moving so my timing was a little off. Continuing with the Zoo saga, in all its doom-y and doldrum-y glory. Or... not? Tbh this is a pretty filler-ish chapter, focusing mainly on the side characters, and a gentle resolution of their personal little arcs, complete with, er, lacrimose levity? Harrowing humor?_

 _Idk, guys. I'll leave it for you to decide._

 _Also finally delving into_ _Tórir's full backstory with the Queens, and his vendetta against their descendants in particular. Hopefully it clears up some confusion, while also rounding him out as a character (without the risk of woobiefication)._

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Le Grande Maison

Route de Libourne D243,

33330 Bordeaux, France

By habit, Kai is an early riser.

In Okinawa, he's developed a daily routine. 5:00. Wide-awake. 5:30. Shower, shave, change of clothes, his movements not whistle-jump, toe-the-line speedy anymore, but with a fast efficiency leftover from the war. 6:00. Coffee percolating and congee steaming at the breakfast counter. 7:00. A Crossfit workout, jump-rope and a few rounds on the punching bag to get his blood zitzing. 8:00. A call or a text to check in with Sayumi and Sayuri. Another one, usually, to Dee. 8:30. Opening Omoro and getting started with the grill while the regulars trickle in.

Here at the Zoo, he flounders from sleep with a muzzy grunt. He stretches in the unaccustomed space of the King-sized bed, the sheets pleasantly cool on his skin. His room is in the east wing, with a tall bay window that offers a view of the vineyards stretching green beneath a mid-morning sky.

 _Shit._

 _I overslept again._

He blames the jet-lag. It was a nonissue in his twenties, an irritant in his thirties, but now it's a bona fide pain-in-the-ass. They've stayed at the Zoo, whoops, his bad, _Le Grande Maison_ , for a week, and his inner-clock is still wonky.

He ought to take Julia up on the offer for a packet of Cindol. But Kai is against drugs on principle. It's just as well that he's seldom unwell. Good genes, exercise and a balanced diet have endowed him with the vigorous health of a rugby team. He's always made the best of his good fortune.

 _Un-_ fortunately _,_ it works against him whenever he contemplates lazing in bed.

Grumbling, Kai hauls himself to his feet. They'd received the all-clear about Okinawa from David last night. The Chevalier is nowhere in the vicinity. But that doesn't rule out threats—here or there.

Kai prefers to play it safe. With Saya in enemy sightlines, they need to take every precaution. Especially since she's been so… off, lately. When she is chipper, it's _too_ chipper: a manic-dizzy spell with something darker beneath. When she's sad, it's a strange incurable melancholy that nobody can rouse, except Yumi and Yuri. She spends most of her time with them anyway. Or with Haji, the two of them acting normal, or almost normal. Kai can't tell. There's been a low-key intensity to them lately, like they're about to start fighting. Only instead of fighting they spend hours locked up in the Soleil Suite.

Kai could be wrong, but he doubts they're in there playing chess.

 _Can't wait to go back to Okinawa._

 _At least stuff was_ normal _there._

Ironic, that it's the same refrain he'd recited in the war.

Some things never change.

On his phone, a notif pings. Dee, on their encrypted line, everything coded down to the header image (an 'X' means _Emergency_ ; a '**' means _Get to my location_ ; a '#' means _Mission is FUBAR_ and a '^^^' means _I miss you_ ).

Today, it's the latter.

 _Flying in from Paris in a few hours._

Kai texts back: _Stay safe._

It's minimalist, but heartfelt. He's no good at expressing himself. Even less so through the medium of technology.

Thankfully, Dee is smart enough to make inferences. Her reply comes quick. Humorous, expectant, affectionate: a combination of all three.

 _Keep the schedule wide open. We'll have some R &R._

Kai's lips quirk. But it's a smile that's equal parts wry and rueful. He thumbs out: _Before or after we tell ur parents?_

There is a pause, then a reply, as rapidfire as the first:

 _Before is smart. After is safer. We do the smart thing_. _Always_. Then, as an afterthought. _Unless you wanna hightail it to Italy?_

Exhaling a laugh, he shakes his head. Ordinary jokes. Text convos. Who would've figured them for it?

 _Italy sounds good. Zoo is better._ He'll let her read between the lines. _See you soon._

His excitement at the prospect feels like cheating, especially during this potential crisis. But it feels like cheating too, to prolong the secrecy of their affair. Better to have it out in the open, and deal with the fallout as it happens. That's how he's lived most of his life. And Dee deserves better than illicit meet-ups in hotels.

He just hopes David understands, without flying into a rage. He hopes Sayumi and Sayuri do. And he hopes _Saya_ does. Hadn't she asked him to introduce her to whoever was in his life?

Coming out into the hall in his workout clothes, Kai hears Saya cry out. Adrenaline ignites. Reaching for the gun beneath his shirt, tucked into the band at his waist, he's ready to break into her room in case there's an attack—

A moment later, he understands what's going on.

Sachi and V are both standing outside the Soleil Suite. Their expressions are remarkably similar: boyish gawps of incredulity. Inside Saya and Haji's room, the soundtrack is audible—creaky mattress springs and muffled cries. Wild, energetic, unrestrained. Early birds boning each other's bones out.

 _Ew._

Discomfort scorches Kai's face to the tips of his ears. His eyes narrow at V and Sachi. "Guys. _Beat it_."

The Chevaliers jerk to attention. Sachi slinks out an apologetic wince; V makes funny little noises in his throat, choking grunts of laughter that seem to say, _And you thought me and Yumi were bad._

When Kai glowers, they beat a hasty retreat.

Left alone in the hallway, Saya and Haji getting busy five feet away, Kai's awkwardness reaches defcon levels.

In another life, this would've been his worst nightmare. The kind of thing he'd swapped train cabins with Saya to avoid happening. The kind of thing that made him blaze with big-brotherly chagrin when he contemplated the year Saya and Haji had spent alone together after Riku's death, or the night Solomon had whisked her away to New York.

It was a long time before he'd brought himself to question her about any of it. All Saya had offered to his awkward interrogation was the repeated sigh of _Nothing like you're thinking_. She'd never defined _Nothing_ and he couldn't gather the nerve to explain what he was _Thinking_. But he had buttonholed Julia to have Saya checked for pregnancy and every STI known to Man and Non-Man, which, big shocker, hadn't gone over well with Saya, although to Julia's credit she'd played along without once laughing.

After the results came up clean, they'd both pretended it never happened.

Thirty years later, what was fruitless has borne fruit. Solomon is dead, Haji is alive, he and Saya are _Together_ in the official capacity, and Kai has adopted the policy of having blinders on—seeing only what is right in front of him.

 _Or not-seeing, in this case._

He cringes.

In the past, he'd only tolerated Saya's closeness to Haji for its ( _hah_!) surface innocence. But it's stupid to think it would remain so. It's stupid, too, to pack Saya up in a cramped, little-sisterly box of childhood. As she frequently likes to remind him, she's not a child.

Anymore? In the first place?

Kai sighs. In his chest is a subspecies of sadness like when Yumi and Yuri graduated highschool, when they went on their first dates, when they started college, when they chose their Chevaliers… and when Yuri announced her pregnancy. They're all growing up, moving on, becoming different people. And Kai, left on the sidelines, can only marvel at how these creatures supposedly out of time can change in ways as human as anyone.

 _Pretty soon, they won't need me._

It's a bittersweet fact of life. Yet that makes it essential to cherish the time he still has with them.

 _Except this._

He could've gone a hundred lifetimes without overhearing _this_.

Grumbling, Kai exits the scene. On his phone, his horoscope notif advises:

 _Prepare for a difficult conversation today._

Huh.

Maybe David and Julia won't take the news well after all.

Downstairs, the kitchen is all sunlight and glossy tiles. Usually, the château keeps its own staff at hand. But since the place has been booked out to their party, they have free run of the space. Kai has already taken over breakfast duties, with Haji handling lunch and the gang eating out for dinner.

Stepping through the swinging doors, Kai is ready to get breakfast rolling for everyone. He is astonished to see Yumi and Yuri already there. Yumi is bent over a mixing bowl, whisking pre-pancakes into a goop. Yuri is at the stove, where sunny-side-up eggs—over-crisped—sizzle.

Kai squints. "What're you two doing?"

The girls are as domesticated as wild pumas. They bake gluten-free cookies, whip up fancy salads and drink kale juice from mason jars. That's all. Back at their flat, Yumi survives entirely on takeout and V's jugular vein; Sachi does light housekeeping and meal-preps for Yuri. Kai has never known either of them to willingly set foot in the kitchen.

Now, they greet him with identical, too-bright smiles.

"We're, um, making you breakfast," Yumi chirps.

"You want the usual two eggs, right?" Yuri asks.

Kai regards them warily. He'll bet his left kidney there are hairs in the pancake batter; the eggs already look like they contain enough char to traumatize a coal-miner.

He rolls a mouthful of unspoken words, all of them starting with _What the hell are you up to?_ Backtracks, tries a different approach, then opens his mouth:

"What the _hell_ are you up to?"

Welp.

He tried.

"Like we _said_ —" Yumi is all didactic emphasis. "—brea _k_ fast."

"We've also decided you need more tomatoes in your diet," Yuri says, in the officious tone used by schoolmarms and late-night googlers of _Top Ten Diets for Men Nearing Fifty_. "They're full of, um, lycopene."

"Lyco—what? A werewolf?"

Kai isn't sure what's harder to take. The smoke spiraling from the oil-slathered frying pan—or the globs of pancake batter in Yumi's curls. Finally it becomes too much, and he shoos them to the table.

"—Christ. Siddown. Gimme that."

Commandeering the bowl, turning down the flame on the frying pan, he gets to work salvaging (his?) breakfast. Yumi and Yuri, perched on the kitchen stools, watch Not-Dad in his Not-Domain. Their eyes are misty and their smiles are mushy-daughterly in a way that creeps him out. Are they high? Sleepwalking? Zombified?

"What brought this on anyway?" he mutters. "You guys fishing for a loan? 'Cause you'd have better luck asking Haji."

" _Psssh_ ," they say, re: the loan (or Haji).

"What then? Better spit it out. I hate guessing games this early in the day."

The twins exchange glances. Yuri twiddles with a napkin while Yumi drums her chipped-red nails on the counter. The juvenile posturings don't detract from how terribly earnest their faces are.

At length—

"Kai..."

"Yeah?"

"Saya... told us some things. Last night."

"Like what?"

They sit in silence for a moment, while Kai slides the sizzling heap of eggs into a plate, then gets started on pancakes. As he works, he becomes cognizant of the mercurial shift in the atmosphere. Or maybe it is his own comprehension as he takes in the evidence of Yuri's tear-glossed eyes, and the faint downturn of Yumi's mouth. Pins and needles of premonition shoot up his spine.

Slowly, he turns. "What? What'd she say?"

Except their faces reflect the answer.

 _Fuck._

A sinking coldness goes through Kai. It's like swallowing a mouthful of ice cubes.

"She didn't," he breathes. "Tell me she didn't…"

They nod. Yuri slides out a reluctant smile. Yumi reaches out and takes hold of his hand. Equidistant between two rays of sunlight, they both look like Riku in that moment. The powerful innocence in the tilt of their heads. The unflinching resolve in their eyes. Eyes that— _Christ_ —are composed of Riku's ingredients, and also _Diva's_.

He'll never get over that. How a monster like Diva could make two bundles of such goodness. A bratty, trash-talking, shopping-crazy, pancake-burning goodness that is the best kind. A goodness that is kissing-cousin to Saya's, because if she hadn't come into Kai's life first, he'd never have been left with Sayumi and Sayuri. There's a kind of inevitability in it, a rightness of being, the past wrapping itself into a big bow around the present.

Yumi's fingers are cold in Kai's hand. Her sister looks just as shivery, teardrops caught in the curls of her lashes.

"We wanted to thank you," she whispers. "For taking care of us all these years."

"Even when we were insufferable punks," Yumi adds. "Like our Emo phase."

"And the scene phase."

"And the hip-hop phase."

"And the coke for breakfast phase."

"That's not—" He blinks. "Wait. _What_?"

"Diet coke, Kai. Not nose-candy."

"…Oh."

Yumi squeezes his fingers in hers. "We know you can't stand sugary messes in the morning. Literal or metaphoric. But we just wanted to show you. How grateful we are. For taking us in."

"And for never—" Yuri swallows. "Never holding the past against us."

This stuns Kai. His ears go hot, and tears threaten to come to his eyes. That triple-time heartbeat-y thing that happens when he's overwrought is in a whole other league. He's afraid he'll smash the frying pan against the tiles and start bawling.

So he does the next best thing. He sweeps the girls in his arms with the inarticulate force of a bear scooping his cubs out of a dangerous current upriver. They're both so _tiny_. Like Saya, they've never matured past their late teens in appearance, for all that they can toss around head-spinning words like _Dramaturgical_ and _Koyaanisqatsi._

But they're _strong_ too. It's there in the way their arms encircle him. There in their smiles, and the tears gathering in their eyes.

"The past—" Kai grits out. "The past has _nothing_ to do with who you are. And you've always, _always_ , been the best things in my life."

Understatement to the thousandth power. But can any child truly comprehend the love of a parent? Like a raw nerve: terrifying, agonizing, unprotected. Rooted in the knowledge of life's ugliness, and the determination to protect them from its worst.

It's why he'd never told them about Diva. What if it tore them up inside? What if they'd grow up hating themselves?

He whispers it now. They shake their heads.

"We get it," Yumi sniffles. "We get why you didn't tell us. But I'm glad we know the truth. It's shitty, but—it makes me thankful."

"Thankful?"

"We got something better than our mother did," Yuri says. "Better than Saya did. It's just—"

"What?"

They exchange tearful looks. "If not for us, you'd have Riku," Yuri says. "Do you ever wish that—I dunno. We hadn't been born? You'd have him instead of us, and—"

He snatches them in, so tight they cry out, his face pressed into their hair.

"Don't! Don't even _think_ it! Never ever ever—!"

Their sobs hold a breathless pitch of relief. Like they've been swung upside-down and flung disoriented to the ground, only to find _home_ again. It's just as well. As long as Kai is alive, that's what he's determined to be for them.

Because that's what they've been for him, all these years.

Right from the start.

* * *

Casino Venetian

Estr. do Istmo,

4HW7+VC Cotai, Macau

Tórir sits at the balcony of his palatial hotel, staring out at the view of the harbor.

Curious, he inhales the sea-scented air. He finds it strange how the port cities everywhere smell the same. Salt. Decay. Dampness. The Macanese landscape at dusk yields a strange nostalgia: the glittering row of lights, the dark stretch of sea, the collection of buildings at once symmetrical and haphazard.

But the wind whipping off the waters is dense with humidity. Above is not the icy altar of the Faroese sky, but the smog-hazy sheen of tropical summer. The temperature is at least eighty and intensifying.

Behind Tórir. the patio door swings open.

" _Fuck_ this heat." Carsten is seal-slippery beneath his suit. "How can you stand it?"

With effort, Tórir rouses himself. "It is not too bad."

"Want something to drink? Room service just restocked the mini-bar."

"No."

It is men like Carsten who need the ebullience of alcohol to lubricate business meetings. Tórir requires no such crutches. Tonight's negotiations, with the heads of IBM-UAWA, are no more than a stepping stone to his ultimate goal. A goal he has no intention of sharing the even bare rudiments of, because if anyone—enemy or ally—understands his objectives, the more they can compromise his ability to achieve it.

A useful lesson from the Red Queen. Learnt at little cost, except to those who opposed her.

At his shoulder, Carsten jitters like a mass of half-set Jello. "You think it'll go smoothly tonight?" he prompts. "The head honchos' will give their blessings for our operation?"

"Their correspondence with Argiano suggested so."

"Yeah. I mean—they _seem_ pretty interested. But who's to say they won't _lose_ interest?"

"Do they seem uninterested?" Tórir lets off a musing sound. His eyes rove across their fancy accommodations. "They are going to much trouble for us, if that is so."

Carsten concedes with a nervous chuckle. At the outdoor bar, he pours himself a drink, swirling the beer in the cut-crystal glass. His hands, pink and pudgy, remind Tórir of an oversized baby's. And like a baby, he lacks the dexterity to use them except for popping beer cans or clattering away at keypads.

But that, like so much else, seems the same world over. A morass of young men, pungent with the smell of alcohol and impotence, their minds saturated with pixellated blurs of pornography, their dreams demarcated by paychecks and paywalls and parking spaces. This shining new world. This wired-web where everything is plotted and planned by rote.

A playground that is primed for catastrophe.

 _Soon_ , Tórir thinks. Anticipation is effervescent in his veins. _Very soon._

He contents himself with idle sightseeing while Carsten chugs beer. Beyond the balcony, abutting the hotel, is a green square of park. Sanitized and small as a postage stamp—yet it fascinates Tórir.

The park is crowded with children. Boys and girls riding bikes. Climbing the pollutant-gritty railings of the jungle gym. Splashing in dirty puddles and pitching tantrums over spilled drinks.

Watching them, Tórir is struck by the whiff of pure _life_. He has a thrall for this quality, unique only to a child. Adult humans are in a state of irrevocable rot. Their bodies peak for barely an eyeblink, in the bloom of unabashedly beautiful adolescence. Then it is all downhill: decay and disrepair. Lungs blackened with carcinogens. Cataracts filming the eyes. Bones creaking and sinews stiffening to presage the inevitable full-body breakdown.

A fate Tórir has avoided as surely as the grave.

 _But at what cost?_

For a moment he thinks of two warm wriggling morsels in his arms. The delicious milky scent wafting off two downy heads. The flecks of blood around two dimpled chins.

 _Fa_ _ð_ _ir..._

"You okay, Tórir?"

He blinks.

Carsten is watching him with a look of real, if wary, concern. Below, the children frolic cheerfully.

"Yes." It is a subdued hum. "I am fine."

Carsten's eyes ping past Tórir, to the playground. "Sure you don't, um, want blood?"

"I fed earlier today."

"Uh-huh. That's cool. So long as you don't, er, attack anyone you shouldn't."

A flare of irritation rises. Tórir's darkly hooded eyes hold Carsten's. "What do you mean?"

Carsten winces. "N-Nothing. Just—those kids."

"What of them?"

"You were looking at 'em pretty funny."

 _Was I?_

Tórir's gaze returns to the children. Little flesh-pounds of sprightly spirit. Were Tórir watching them at the park, with such burning directness, he'd be labeled a sexual predator. But if he swapped his skin for a female's, the parents would exchange glances, tittering in sympathy. _Poor thing. She wants a baby._

 _Or maybe she's remembering one._

His mismatched eyes dip away.

"So small," he murmurs. "But so full of joy."

"They _are_ pretty cute," Carsten concedes, between a slurp of his drink.

"They remind me of my daughters."

Stifling a choke, Carsten sets the glass down. " _What_?"

Tórir glances his way. "'What' what?"

"D-d-daughters?"

"Of course." It is rhetorical exasperation. "I lived several decades with the Queens. Soldier of the Red, Groom of the Blue. Naturally I sired daughters."

"So—w-what happened to them?"

Tórir looks off with little expression. "War."

A war waged at the Red Queen's behest. The Queen who wielded swords as a natural part of her body, but for whom babies were misshapen meat-blobs. She always foisted her own off to wet nurses. Sent them to be fostered in fortresses beyond her demesne. A pragmatic precaution; the court was a cesspit of danger, crawling with pathogens and politics alike. Little princesses were sequestered by the countryside, until they came of age.

Upon their sixteenth year, they would return to court. Where, soon enough, their tender hearts would coagulate into the spike-shaped clusters of subterfuges and savagery that were a Queen's birthright.

Tórir's daughters never survived to their sixteenth year.

Born to the Blue Queen, under the aegis of the Red, they were sent as wards (diplomatic hostages) to a rival court in the west. Tórir remembers how young they were. Barely five, their sweet faces still padded with milk-fat.

The fortress to hold them was at the island's edge. He remembers the snow-crusted spires poking into the sky like broken ribs, the icicles caught along the rooftops like fangs. He remembers holding his daughters' hands in the dying sunset as the snow fell, flakes catching in their dark hair, melting across their rosebud mouths.

 _Fa_ _ð_ _ir... I'm afraid._

Kneeling, Tórir had embraced them. He'd been _miserable_ that day. Usually it took events of cataclysmic scale to penetrate the shellacking of ice around his core. As if, after his father's death, the dead meat in the old man's brain was somehow transposed into the beating organ behind Tórir's ribs.

A black spot he carried everywhere, beneath his sweetness and his scheming.

The arrival of his daughters had changed that. His first glimpse of them, a blood-scummed bundle steamrollering out from between the Blue Queen's thighs, was miraculous. Their crying was like music rising from bubbles of blood.

Staring at their faces, he'd thought for the first time:

 _Is my revenge worth losing them?_

From the beginning, he was a doting father. The marvel of the court. Each morning, under the watery rays of sunlight, he would let blood flow in a hot trickle from his wrist and into their pursed mouths. Each night, circling their cradle like a sentry, he would sing lullabies in soft counterpoint to their mewlings, until the girls went perfectly still, absorbing the sound of his voice like a stone dropped into the water-well of their bodies.

And each moment, staring at their upturned little faces, he knew that nothing mattered. His parents, his brothers, their plans, their revenge, even the Queens themselves.

That was his old life; a carapace as thin as crepe paper. He'd shed it with the birth of his daughters, to be reborn alongside them.

 _Fa_ _ð_ _ir._

That is what he was now.

A father.

Then five summers elapsed. At the zenith of winter, when the air was chill and bone-dry, the Red and Blue Queens decreed that the girls be sent away. So many nights Tórir spent in their chambers, pleading and raging. They were too young, he argued. They were unprepared for a solitary life with strangers.

But the Queens—heartless bitches—gave no quarter. His daughters were sent off, the sound of their weeping a dreadful dirge.

It was a sound Tórir could not bear.

That same night, under the cloak of secrecy, he'd whisked them away. Taken them to a cottage in the countryside, stowing them safely under the care of two bribed humans, their every gesture stiff with courtesy because their very lives depended on it. His plan was to wait a week, then return to the court to negotiate with the Red Queen. Convince her to let his little ones remain.

Midway into his journey, the Red Queen began a military campaign. War was declared on invading hordes in the south. Within days, the land was a mire of sword-strikes and blood-splatters. Usually, Tórir relished in the mayhem. A chance to whet his skills and slake his bloodlust, each kill a symbol of the power surging through his veins.

Yet now, all he could think of were his daughters. Alone in the cottage, at the mercy of marauders. Without Red Queen's consent, he took off to bring them home.

But _home_ was lost forever.

When he'd arrived, the cottage was a burnt-up exoskeleton. The floors were scummed with blood and ash, tracked by hundreds of footprints. And down in the cellar: blackened cinderblocks, stumps of wood, the stairwell glittering with bloodstained frost.

Tórir remembers his footsteps echoing eerily as he descended. A flaming torch in one hand, a sword at the ready in the other. The fermented reek of death clung to the air.

For the first time in his life, Tórir prayed. He, who was lauded by mortals as a godling. He, who grew up in a godless house that disdained all matters devotional.

Yet, with each step, he prayed with gathering fervency.

 _Please let them be alive._

 _Please._

Bottom of the cellar. It reeked like a slaughterhouse: primal and foul. The floor beneath his boots was slippery. He lifted his torch, illuminating the interior in coppery-gold light.

Two shapes coalesced in the darkness. They hung suspended by hooks on the ceiling. Spinning slowly, the floor beneath them glistening with tar-thick fluids. Lit by the flickering glow, they were surreally small, the eyes glassy. Their skins were peeled back like wrapping paper to expose the soft dark meat adhering to the bones.

Tórir stared, his expression almost bemused. His understanding that it was two children—flayed little girls—came a split second before he understood who they were.

Horror detonated through his entire body. Howling, he scrambled back. The slick floor sent him skidding. The torch clattered away, extinguishing with an acrid hiss.

Leaving him alone in the dark. Alone with the skinned bodies of his daughters. The smell of their blood was so familiar to Tórir—a spicy sweetness shot through with acrid smoke—that he began to scream.

He didn't stop screaming until the villagers raced downstairs, and someone gave him milk of maypop to take the horror away.

The little princesses were entombed a week later. The entire court gathered at the grassy cliffside of Bøsdalafossur. The Red and Blue Queens. The _blodprinsen_.

The dappling of winter sunlight stabbed into Tórir's swollen eyes. The rest of him was numb. An irresistible numbness, like rebirth of the darkest shade, filling his extremities and encasing his mind with poison.

 _They will pay._

Not just the enemies who'd butchered his girls. Not just the lords who's given the command. Not just the villagers who'd failed to send him word.

He would kill them all in time. One by one. But he would not stop there.

He would not stop until he'd destroyed the Queens themselves.

 _They began this._

 _Once again, they stole the crux of my life._

Tórir inhales, shaking himself loose from the grip of memory.

At the Macau harbor, a trestle of red and white lights pulse dreamily. The sun is nearly gone; the purplish sky is salted with stars. Cinnabar moths caper in the glow of the balcony's lanterns.

Nothing about the scenery has changed. Yet Tórir feels himself once again inhabiting that old space, on the day of his daughters' death. In a zone with no color. No heat or heartbeat. Just the sluicing coldness in his chest that calcified, day by day, into hatred of the sharpest edge.

"Jesus," Carsten breathes, when Tórir finishes. "That's fucked up. I'm so sorr—"

"Their names were Sváva and Suffía." Tórir exhales. The memory thins away in the breeze, a mouthful of ash. "My first foray into fatherhood. My last."

"So afterward, you never...?"

"I never lay with the Blue Queen again to sire children. Never at _her_ behest, anyway."

"What?"

He rises from his seat. His face is blank expect for the live-wire current in his eyes. "My brothers and I staged our coup a year after. Imprisoned the Blue Queen, and harnessed the blood-wrath of the Red. Soon, I had empires at my fingertips. Armies. Wealth. What need had I for mewling girl-children?"

 _What need indeed?_

He used to sing his daughters to sleep. His swordplay, speed, strength: unmatched. His wit, wisdom, wordplay: exemplary. Yet he'd never sung for another. Only for his girls. Each night, beneath the gloss of moonlight, carding his fingers through their dark hair, he crooned lullabies of his own fashioning. For them, something always broke loose in his chest, a sunburst of devotion that not even his grand designs of vengeance could touch.

Until they were gone.

Now, that grand design is all the drives him. The insatiable desire for empires. Queens beneath his heel, and nations at his mercy. All the trappings of power.

 _But will you ever sing again?_

Wind blows off the harbor, ruffling his hair. It hardens the dampness of salt in his eyes into stone.

* * *

Centre Hospitalier

30 Rue Kilford

92400 Courbevoie, France

On the outskirts of Paris, Red Shield has established an outpost in a clinical pathology lab.

Everything is modern and up-do-date. Toward one wall, there is a terrarium and a cage for lab-rats. Toward the other, an array of diagnostic and analytic machinery, set up beneath a poster of Stephen Hawking.

David has a habit of hanging up these posters at each of Julia's workplaces, stating that it is important to visualize the competition. Julia accepts it for the compliment it is, and lets each poster remain.

Usually, the sight of the well-photographed face is comforting. But not today. It has been one of those early mornings when the Powers That Be array a string of minutiae into uncooperative perversity. Test-tubes broken. Computer malfunctioning. Guinea pigs escaping. Printers wheezing emphysemically. Worst of all, the A/C is turned up so high that Julia can feel the chill seeping in all the way to the ventricles of her brain.

Rocking back in her seat, she sips her coffee, sighing at its tepid bitterness.

Taste seems to be conspiring with temperature to bring her down. Yet that makes it twice as imperative to maintain her equilibrium.

Especially when the lab-results on her table threaten to unsettle it completely.

 _"_ _A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to one department of human knowledge alone._ _"_

A quote from Shelley's _Frankenstein_. Thirty years ago, when Julia broke from Red Shield, she'd read the book with intensifying degrees of fascination and foreboding. In the days when her disquiet with Cinq Flèches became too much, when Dr. Collins' monomania began verging on madness, she'd find a quiet corner, open the book to any page, and be transported.

Its premise felt familiar. The folly of scientific overreach. The Modern-Day Prometheus—Dr. Collins' favorite myth—distorting the natural order of life itself.

 _Is it distortion I'm witnessing?_

 _Or evolution in action?_

"Refill?"

Julia blinks at the steaming coffee carafe—and the person attached to it.

"You're back early."

David smiles. He looks frayed at the edges—which is to say his jacket is minutely creased and he has something resembling stubble. The scent of travel lingers heavily in the weave of his suit. But his eyes, flitting over her, are alert as always.

"Our stopover at Hong Kong got bumped from five hours to one," he says.

"Where's Dee?"

"She's left to make a status report to Saya in Bordeaux."

Julia accepts this with a nod, and the refill with a kiss. Sipping from her mug, she asks, "So it's All Clear? No sign of the Chevalier?"

"I've left provisional guards in place. We'll remain abroad a week more, to see if anything turns up at their end."

"Any word from Lewis? New movements from IBM-UAWA?"

"He's trying to narrow down leads. So far, nothing has turned up. But he and Lulu will keep searching." David leans against the table. "His network has confirmed, at least, that Okinawa is no longer their base of operations."

Reassuring news. But David's tone is the exact opposite.

Julia's brow furrows. "What are you thinking? The Chevalier could have followed Saya here?"

"Dee and I agreed that it's better not to rule out the possibility."

"That explains why you hurried back."

"Red Shield's continuance is also a concern. The board have yet to choose even a temporary replacement."

"I've noticed. Perhaps it's a sign…"

"A sign?"

Her gaze shades tactfully. "That Red Shield will soon cease to be."

David absorbs this without expression. But in his eyes, she sees the ambivalence. She can sympathize. They've both been Shields a majority of their lives. Like their parents. And grandparents. Their own children are tied to the organization, and its indomitable fighting spirit. They are proud of all they've accomplished, past and present.

Red Shield embodies more than their duty. It is _home_.

But the last few years, Julia and David have also been talking, in a roundabout way, about retiring. Ezra has proven up to the task of furthering Julia's research. And Dee, the new David, is a force worth reckoning on the frontline. As parents, they've done their best to offer guidance—but their continued presence as Red Shield operatives inhibits their very efforts to leave it.

For David, part of it boils down to behavioral cues—the hypervigilance, the tactical acumen, the travel and danger. Part of it is his intense protectiveness of Dee. While she is on the frontline, she is at risk, and a risk shared is a risk halved. David seldom fails to accompany her on missions. Other times, he sends Kai in his stead, trusting the younger man to guard her back and impart advice, although he and Kai both agree she's outgrown it.

Their daughter can handle herself—as she's proven on multiple occasions.

It makes Julia proud, but also sad. She and David are resigned to eventually becoming empty-nesters. But leaving the organization that is the exoskeleton of their short-and-long-term lives is another dilemma altogether.

David exhales. "Maybe it's time to hang up our hats."

"So soon?" Julia asks, with humor and honesty. "I see no encroaching signs of dementia yet."

That gets a smile. Her favorite kind, which fills his face with intriguing lines. "Maybe it's better that way. We could buy a home in the Maldives. Set up a clinic. We'd work there during the day, walk on the beach in the evening, retire at night to… rearrange the furniture."

She chuckles. "That does sound relaxing. Especially the rearranging furniture bit."

"That was my favorite part too."

She reaches out and squeezes his hand. "I don't know, David. Maybe it's time. But Saya has just awoken, and her mental state is still fragile. We have an unidentified Chevalier, and possibly a military firm, poised to cause trouble. Red Shield is in a state of uncertainty. I wouldn't feel right walking away from it to treat rich tourists for herpes."

David's hand shifts beneath hers, fingers meshing. His eyes hold a world of quiet gratitude. "That's what I thought you'd say."

"It's what you believe too. That's why you're here."

"And why I'll continue to be." His gaze passes from Julia to the papers on her desk. "What were you frowning about before?"

"Hm? Oh." Remembering, Julia gathers up the lab results, stacking them with care. "These are Saya's blood tests. I've taken to monitoring her hormone levels the past weeks."

David raises an eyebrow. "Her hormones? What for?"

"Saya and I had a discussion. Shortly after Joel's funeral. She wanted to know if it was possible to conceive children."

David is nonplussed. "With whom?"

"Haji."

David shakes his head, his posture taking on overtones of disquiet. "She must know that's impossible. The only way a Chiropteran Queen conceives is with…"

"Her sister's Chevalier." She gestures to the papers. "Which is why I find those reports puzzling."

David shuffles through the stack. "What am I looking at?"

"An assessment of Saya's ovarian reserves. FSH. LH. Estradiol hormones. AMH tests—as a rough continuum to determine successful IVF outcomes." She points. "But what's curious are her progesterone levels. These are used to regulate estrus cycles—in Chiropterans and other mammals alike. They maintain a pregnancy. And Saya's are unusually high."

David stares at Julia with renewed confusion—and alarm. "You're implying… what? She's pregnant?"

Julia swallows. "Too early to tell. But she's showing indications of superovulation. That's when the body releases more than one egg within the time-frame unique to their species. In Chiropterans, it takes place as a heat sign every year."

"What's causing it? Is she taking some type of medication?"

"Not from what I can determine. The levels seem to have spontaneously begun escalating over the past few weeks. They've peaked since Joel's funeral. And show no signs of decreasing. At first I thought the results were false. A technical malfunction. Or that I'd drawn her blood at a wrong day. But the levels have not fluctuated, even at different times on the same day."

"Surely that doesn't mean she might be pregnant." David's uncertain voice strings the statement out slowly. "There's Haji's own body chemistry to consider. Sperm motility. The D/S factor. To say nothing of that _Kiss of Death_ thing. You always said the Queen's womb was inhospitable to her own Chevalier's seed."

"That's the issue. At the moment, it's not inhospitable at all. The opposite." Troubled, Julia takes off her glasses. "I've contemplated contacting Saya. For a retest, if nothing else."

"I'm sensing the unsaid 'but'," David says.

Julia nods. "The problem is, if these results are accurate…"

Comprehension dawns in David's gaze. "We might have not one pregnant Queen on our hands, but _two_."

"Correct." Julia's expression is a mix of trepidation and fascination. "If the latter occurs, it could be a complete paradigm shift."

"That's a big 'If."

In David's tone, Julia hears the request not for refutation, but confirmation. She wishes she could supply it.

Instead, she stares at the reports.

"I think," she says, "we've already passed that point."

* * *

Le Grande Maison

Route de Libourne D243,

33330 Bordeaux, France

 _Back again._

 _To where it all started._

Saya's sandals pad softly across the grass. A bouquet of white roses—a funerary wreath or peace laurel?—is clutched in her hands. The unearthly silence of the night is suffocating. The pale fishhook of moon gives no light.

Saya doesn't care. After a string of bad nights, she is determined to make this visit. To clutch at some shape of closure, when her waking hours offer none.

It is like the dream (?) she had before; she retraces childhood memories, revisiting the spots where she and Haji had played as children. The grove of apple trees. The highest peak of the hills. The old groundskeeper's shed. The old barn.

The tower.

It cuts like an old blade through the darkness of midnight: all rusted edges. It looks nothing like her dream. The blue roses are gone. In the pallid moonlight washing through the space, she sees the cruelties that the passage of time has wrought: the cracks carved across its walls, the smears of mildew, the silkings of old cobwebs.

Yet not one creature stirs the _mise en scene._ Not the twitter of a bird or the skitter of a beetle. It is unnerving. Saya feels as if she is the only living creature there. When Diva was alive, the tendrils of her presence had radiated everywhere. Arachnids spinning webs, mice scurrying behind walls, butterflies darting in dappled colors. Like a princess in a twisted fairytale, her sister had a coterie of friends: each as unusual as she.

Now the place is uninhabited.

 _Haunted._

Saya climbs the crumbling stone steps. She'd avoided the tower since arriving at the Zoo. Now she is determined to face it unflinchingly.

 _As what?_

A penitent making a pilgrimage?

Or a criminal returning to the crime-scene?

Her fingers tighten on the bouquet of flowers, their petals quivering. In the shadow of the tower, she tips her head back. Diva's cell, with its tiny window, is gone. In its place are the skeletal remains of wooden undergirding. Swathes of cobwebs hang everywhere, flapping like albino batwings.

In Saya's dream, the cell was whole, and Diva was inside it.

 _Not Diva._

 _It was another._

Someone who had called her _daughter_. Someone who knew her, and whom she didn't know at all.

 _"I have much to tell you..."_

Memory whites out Saya's surroundings. Days and nights of a life not hers, not Diva's either, a honeycomb of fast-motion carnage.

 _A blue patina of sea. The wintry sunlight washing over snow-topped mountains. A battlefield, a morass of bodies, a puddle of dead babies. Dark flecks of blood around a sharp white smile, glittering on pale skin like aphids._

 _And a snake, its whisper curling around her spine._

 _Saya..._

Dark spots burst before her eyes. She stumbles, and drops the bouquet. Its pale petals scatter across the steps, whisked away by the wind.

The same way Saya is whisked away by terror. Whirling, she flees into the night. Tears surge hot and unstoppable, tasting not of closure but cowardice. She isn't ready. Not to say goodbye to Diva. Not yet. Her sister deserves a better send-off than this. Her blood demands a tribute of blood in turn. That seems the only way Saya can recompense for what she's taken.

 _Sssh,_ Diva soothes in her ear. _We'll find a way._

 _With a pound of flesh._

 _And a drop of blood._

Nausea swoops. Saya's gut roils and she doubles over, bitter bile filling her mouth. She vomits into a tangle of brambles, then props herself dizzily against the bark of a tree, her breaths sawing in her lungs, her forehead slick with sweat. All the bones in her body feel like heat-shot jelly.

Spoiled _oyster au gratin_. That must be it.

The next morning, she says nothing about it to anyone.

* * *

 _ffs Saya. At least, like, get a pee test kit or something?_

 _Anyway, hope the chapter wasn't too disjointed. As you've guessed, shit's gonna go down in the next two installments - and it ain't pretty. Even so, I hope it's an enjoyable and entertaining read!_

 _Review, pretty please! :)_


	30. Ours

_Early posting~!_

 _I had a semi-rough draft ready for this chapter a few days in advance, so I got done with it pretty early. Overall, I'm still a tad dissatisfied with the pacing - it feels somewhat disjointed and prone to mood whiplash - but short of revamping it entirely, there's not much else to be done. Nonetheless, I hope y'all enjoy! We're finally into the baby drama, and the crux of Saya's supernatural connection to Diva. It will build to a head in the next two chapters, with Act II finishing in a pretty, erm, bombastic fashion._

 _Heavy TW for sexual assault in the second section of the chapter. Begins right after the line "_ _When Saya opens her eyes..." If more specific content warnings are necessary, please PM me and let me know. As mentioned before, I write this stuff for escapist shippiness, not to dredge up badness for my readers._

 _As always, your comments mean the world to me! I take each suggestion seriously as I continue to plot this tale; your thoughts power my outline (not to mention my enthusiasm) at each stage of the process._

 _Now on with the chapter! Review pretty please!_

* * *

Le Grande Maison

Route de Libourne D243,

33330 Bordeaux, France

Beneath the sprawling branches of an oak tree, Haji plays cello.

The afternoon wind stirs the pages of his leather-bound songbook. Some manuscripts are nearly as old as he is: ink-stained blots of Bach jotted on folio sheets. Others are rarities out of circulation: Zemlinsky, Bimbi, Dohnanyi. Mixed in between is contemporary fluff: everything from Queen's _Bohemian Rhapsody_ to Beyoncé's _All the Single Ladies._

Despite his Old-World trappings, Haji always flows with the times.

Today, he sifts through Schnittke's _Sonata #1._ It is an unusual number, the cool demarcations of tonality darkening into drawn-out dissolution. A headbanger in the right hands; a migraine in the wrong ones.

Usually Haji steers clear of such expressionistic pieces. Today, its challenges are useful for self-centering.

 _Saya._

His gaze, irrepressibly magnetized, swings across the space toward her.

Beyond the trees is a fancy marble patio, with an octagon-shaped swimming pool. Saya sprawls at the lip, feet cooling in the water that glitters shockingly blue. Sunlight limns the contours of her body in its two-piece pink swimsuit. One small hand is wrapped around a sweating glass of pineapple juice. The other rests across her belly.

Yumi and Yuri, perched on either side of her, prattle cheerfully, their oversized dark glasses flashing in the sun. Saya smiles from time to time. But it is a smile of dreams: heavy-lidded and half-abstracted.

The others are spread out around the patio. David and Julia are lounging on the deck chairs with multilayered sandwiches and iced coffees. Julia is busy even in repose, fingers clattering away at a palm laptop. David seems asleep. But his eyes, squinting for scope, are on Kai and Deidra.

They'd broken the news of their relationship a day ago—with mixed results. Julia was taken-aback but understanding. Yumi and Yuri slathered on midlife crisis wisecracks, but were otherwise supportive. David was left livid. Haji had heard him muttering to Julia that it was as creepy as his adopted son dating his biological daughter. _We're not the goddamn Brady Bunch,_ he'd growled.

Haji has no doubt, with Julia in the couple's corner, he'll come around eventually. In the meantime, he isn't pleased—and Kai is going out of his way not to give the older man a hard time.

He and Dee are doing steady laps around the pool. Adam thrashes in between them; they are teaching him the backstroke. Toward the deep end, V cannonballs in with a massive _splash_ , to shrieks from the three Queens. In the corner, Sachi cuts in as smoothly as a stingray, surfacing to rest his elbows on the pool's edge. He nuzzles against Yuri's arm, and she strokes his wet-plastered hair fondly. The two of them have been like a pair of cooing doves since her pregnancy—a cutesiness Haji finds both touching and half-nauseating.

Then Yuri glimpses Haji, and waves. "Join in!"

"Water's great!" Yumi shouts. "No cockroaches anywhere!"

"Or fungus!"

"Or pee!"

"Well, maybe a _little_ pee…"

Haji smiles fractionally, then shakes his head.

Relaxation is seldom his purview. Even here, he is fully-dressed and on high alert—a sentient antenna more than a sunbather.

Scoping the territory.

David and Dee have shared the status report on Okinawa. The home-base is secured. By the end of the week, the team is ready to decamp. Still, Haji is not reassured. Red Shield remains in shambles. The board has split into multiple factions, each trying to enlist support for their candidate as the next Joel. Haji hopes they will not try to wrangle Saya into their political games.

Except she cannot remain indefinitely at the Zoo, either.

The modern retrofittings do little to erase the tragedy of the past. Haji _feels_ it each day: a dark fizz like static electricity along his spine.

As does Saya.

At night, she thrashes as if facedown in blood. Whenever she jerks awake, her eyes are bright red, as if dynamite has gone off in her brainstem. In daylight, she puts on a brave front. But it's clear to Haji that her attunement to the moment is overlaid by a dial-tone, an empty hiss of white-noise that makes her eyes go blank at odd moments.

She's grown up in the Zoo. This is her birthplace. But being here unsettles something in her. Sometimes her face reminds him of a _noh_ mask: a smooth surface concealing a furor beneath.

But that furor has nothing to do with the Zoo.

It is _Saya_.

"Yo, Haji! You plannin' to bake in the sun?"

Kai approaches. Barefoot and in swim trunks, toweling his damp hair. He looks happier than he's been in a long time. The announcement with Dee has taken a load off his mind. Not even Red Shield's future uncertainties can bring him down.

Whereas Haji always wears his happiness like a secret. Hidden deep, alongside the spectrum of riskier emotions.

"Don't you wanna swim?" Kai asks. "I've got an extra pair of trunks."

 _Trunks with neon green UFO prints,_ Haji thinks—but keeps to himself.

"Perhaps another time."

Kai sighs. "You don't have to be on guard duty every minute. Take a break."

"I am."

"Coulda fooled me."

Kai kneels to fetch a soda can from the adjacent icebox. His muscular torso is crisscrossed with old scars. Whereas the fretwork on Haji's own body is fading, day by day, into smoothness. His Chiropteran hand, too, toughened like rawhide from battles, is softening after years off the frontline.

A portent of weakness? A transition into better days?

Popping open the soda, Kai takes a sip. "I've been thinking."

"Hm."

"Once things with Red Shield aren't in limbo, Dee and me are gonna take a quickie vacation. To Italy or anywhere. We're overdue."

Haji nods, absorbed in his surroundings (i.e. Saya). "I will keep watch over Omoro and the twins."

"That's not what I meant." Kai drums his fingers across the can. "You and Saya should come too."

Haji blinks.

"I mean it. When's the last time you had a break? From Chevalier chores."

"It is not a chore."

Kai waves this aside. "I've been doing some reading."

"Hm?"

"Read about something called Caregiver Burnout. Happens a lot in the healthcare profession. Loss of interest in hobbies. Withdrawal from the outside world. Withdrawal from the person they're caring for, in a roundabout way."

"I am aware of the symptoms."

Kai takes another sip from his soda. "Text-book-wise, or personally?"

Haji's brows lift a quarter-inch above their poised benchmark.

"Look. Not saying you're on your way there. But you _need_ a break, Haji. Same as Saya. I think you'd both be better for it." He scrubs a hand through his hair; a tiny tell of embarrassment. "I know Julia mentioned a shrink for Saya, a coupla months back. She has an office in Milan. Maybe you two could—"

"We are fine." Which is a coded: _Keep out of this._

Kai blows out a breath. "Yeah. Sure." Which translates into: _Stubborn jackass._ "Look. No one's forcing you. I just mean—it'd be a change. For both of you."

"I already discussed the option with Saya."

"And?"

"She was... unenthused. She prefers to work through matters on her own."

Haji is determined to respect her choice. But much as David and Kai rib him for being _The go-to guy for psychobabble,_ he is beginning to suspect he is out of his depth. He has lived a long time among soldiers. Long enough to grapple with most manifestations of PTSD. Saya's symptoms haven't changed since the war. She'd been volatile then, too: seized by impulses beyond her control. None of that ever interfered with Haji's care for her.

Whereas this aberration is psyche-deep.

 _Haunted_.

The word adheres clammily to the inside of Haji's skull.

It evokes the melodrama of cliché—a Victorian manor, a banshee scream, blood splatters on the wall. _Haunted_ has nothing to do with the landscape of a damaged mind. Yet Haji feels its truth acutely. It is a knot of strangeness inside Saya that cannot be unraveled. A third factor constantly unbalancing their two-quotient equation.

 _Soon to be four_ _…_

He sighs. "Western psychology has its uses. But it cannot explain everything."

Kai crooks a brow. "Didn't think I'd hear _you_ say that."

"Healing is never linear, Kai. There are leaps and lurches. Nor is there a singular means of healing. Saya and I discussed alternate therapies. But she did not want them. She wanted... this."

"'This'?"

"Her choice of coping." Haji sighs again. "Taking it day by day. Being with her family."

He stares out at the pool, where Saya and the twins are climbing up the high dive. The water throws a bluish shimmer across their bodies. They leap off the diving board, one by one, landing with barely a splash.

Gasping, Saya surfaces in the sunshine. Strands of wet hair are tangled in her lashes. Pearlescent droplets cling like microscopic diamonds to her skin. Haji takes a break from brooding to admire the raw allure of her: half-siren, half-selkie. Then their eyes meet. She blushes, and he can't help his reflexive smile.

In these moments, his ambivalence about her mental state fades into a secret luster of joy. Moments when Saya will be perched by the bedroom window, slats of golden sunlight falling across her profile, and her bone structure will seem softer, sweeter. Moments when she will traipse barefoot at the lakeside, her fingernails painted a cotton-candy pink, and Haji will glimpse a phantom flash of petticoats and ribboned knee-garters in the same shade.

In those moments, he is still seeing Saya—but the younger version. As if their childhood selves still cling to their skin. As if they are together as they should be, unscarred in mind and body, buoyed by a hopefulness that nothing can alter.

Then—as Saya cuts through the water with synchronized sweeps of her arms and legs— Haji thinks of living things with strong legs and tiny hands altering _her_. Legs and hands made up of both their ingredients, their bodies growing in a black-and-white lucency that resembles MRI scans of exotic fruit.

His face remains bare of nuance. But adrenaline swoops in.

Quietly:

"Earlier this morning. Julia shared some ...news."

"News?"

"About Saya."

Kai swivels to focus on Haji fully. Something in the Chevalier's manner—a subcurrent of strangeness—alerts him of trouble.

"What's up?"

Haji swallows.

It is difficult to find the words. The possibility is enormous. Unsettling. His emotions are too unstable. His heart is the same, throwing off odd beats. In his imagination, he is in an ecstasy of exultation—covering Saya with kisses, kneeling at her feet, tending to her with meals and baths—even as he sits apart with the cello cradled across his body.

Distance is his default. Dramatics have no room in his life.

But neither, before this, did daughters.

"Saya may be pregnant."

There is silence at Kai's end. The breeze transmits his jackrabbiting pulse. "...Say again?"

"You heard me."

"Okay. As far as jokes go—"

"I am serious."

Kai blinks, once, twice. The soda can crinkles in his hand; he tosses it aside. "…Is this a pregnant-with-artistic-fancy? Or a Rosemary's-Baby-pregnant?"

"She is displaying all the signs."

" _Signs_?"

Temperature. Taste. Scent. Haji's senses overflow with them. Secrets palpable only to him.

"Blood is a signature," he says. "Saya's has changed over the past few days."

"Christ." Kai turns to stare at the pool, obviously trying to see what Haji does. " _Christ_."

Head bowed, Haji begins fine-tuning the cello. But Kai cuts across the space between them, snatching fistfuls of his suit lapels. His eyes are blazing. "Hold the _fuck_ up! _How_?"

"Lower your voice."

" _I asked you how?!_ "

Haji shrugs Kai's hands off. He should have expected this. Kai's internal temperature always skyrockets in a crisis. Whereas Haji's temper, cooled to cryogenic stasis, is essential to contain the full-fledged virus of panic in his chest. His heart is a different matter: always thrumming for Saya. For her happiness. For their future.

This is different.

This is a happiness so cataclysmic it verges on terror. A whelm of impact like cracking his skull apart on the bottom of a cliff, a bright delirium of red lilies the color of blood.

Blood surging through the mystery of Saya's body, solidifying into the first spark of life.

 _Ours._

His eyes meet Kai's, glinting not a warning but a plea. "Please. Keep it down."

"Like hell! _How did she_ —?"

"Julia is evaluating the results. In case there is a mistake."

As he speaks, his eyes return to Saya. She's slipped out of the pool, to climb the high dive again. There is a kissable pooch to her belly that could be either too many glasses of pineapple juice or nothing at all.

Haji exhales. "The results will be in any minute now."

Kai's expression seems to short-circuit. His hands tremble, balling into fists.

"Was it—" His voice chokes on itself, "Was it that—that _Chevalier_?"

Haji shakes his head.

 _"Then whose are they?!"_

"Mine."

This passes through Kai in a blanched shockwave. If Haji were less adept at catching indicators of ill-health among humans, he'd suspect the man was on the verge of a stroke.

Then:

"Jesus _fuck_!"

Just short of arm's reach, Kai lunges. Haji braces for a punch. Instead, Kai catches him up in a bear-hug, nearly lifting Haji off the ground. Haji conceals a wince. Disinclined as he is toward displays of sentiment, he certainly wasn't expecting _this_. Yet the raw delight in Kai's eyes is that of a brother.

Setting Haji down, he guffaws. " _Shit_ —that's gotta be one for the books!"

"If conformed."

"If _you_ picked it up, that's as good as positive!" Kai clasps his shoulder. "How the hell did you do it?"

For the first time, Haji's face twitches in a wry smile. "It is not rocket science."

"Not _that_. I mean—how'd it stick? I thought Queens don't get pregnant with their own Chevaliers. Only with—"

"Julia is determining the cause." Or plausible theorems. Haji hesitates, then adds, "Keep it to yourself."

"Huh? Why?"

Haji squints against the afternoon sun, at Saya's solitary shape on the high dive. "Julia has not yet told Saya. If the tests are false positives, it would be unwise to upset her. Especially since—"

There is a terrible shriek from the poolside. He and Kai watch, horrorstruck, as Saya staggers sideways off the high dive, clutching at her head.

And crashes to the tiles below.

* * *

When Saya opens her eyes, she is in the pale cradle of Diva's body.

A shaft of winter sunlight falls through a window. The rest of the space is shadowed. Mildewed stone walls. Cobwebs lacing the ceiling. Here and there, through the cracks, blue roses unfurl from green boughs. The coldness of the air locks Saya's bones.

 _The tower,_ she thinks.

 _I'm in Diva's tower again._

But not alone. She lays on a mattress of matted straw, its prickles caught in the folds of a threadbare blanket. The foreshortened length of her adolescent body glistens clammily: small breasts with turned-in nipples, a pucker of navel, a tuft of dark hair between doll legs. Their insides are sticky with semen.

Ahead, a pair of scuffed boots. A man, half-shadowed in the gloom, doing up his trousers. And at the door, another man, larger and taller, in a well-cut suit. A purse, clinking with coins, passes between them. Hefting his prize, the first man exits the room.

 _"My poor treasure."_

The deep voice comes as if soothing a skittish filly. Footsteps echo. The second man looms above her.

Amshel Goldsmith, impeccably-dressed and colossal as a boulder. His eyes cut through the shadows to Saya's.

No.

 _Diva's._

 _"Poor sweet girl. To be soiled by the likes of that lout."_ Amshel crouches by Diva's body _. "But you must understand, my treasure. It is for the March of Science. We will unlock all the secrets of your body. And your blood."_

Saya—Diva—opens her mouth to speak. But her tongue is leaden. Her limbs are the same, insensate with paralysis.

Drugged.

 _"No matter,"_ Amshel says. His hand caresses her hair, unnervingly large—as big as her whole head _. "You will understand in time. You will see that everything I have done is for you alone."_

Diva opens her mouth once more. But the hand stops stroking and clasps massive fingers over her mouth.

 _"Never fear. I will wipe his memory from your body. Replace it with something better."_

The words are rough and rasping. His enormous weight is settling over her. His woolen suit has a strong smell: tobacco and spiced liqueur. Dropping a hand, he unfastens his trousers. She feels dark, dank heat and a sudden pressure between her thighs.

 _"You belong to me,"_ he murmurs, hot, in her ear. _"My perfect little treasure. Only mine."_

She has heard those words before. She knows what is in store for her. But her body is in the grip of numb lassitude. Why fight it? It's no worse than what he's done before. She's come to prefer it to when Joel and his assistants visit her—with blades in their leather portmanteaus.

She closes her eyes, resigned to this man who gives her comfort between those hellish stretches of suffering—even if that comfort is suffering by another name.

Then he is inside her, without prelude, without mercy. She jerks, mouth slack on a sound that never comes. Mind a maze within which she races to evade the messiness of the moment, her body empty of anything but the thumping sensation of heaviness and heat. But at the last, she glimpses the knife in his hand. Her cry is aborted by the blade slicing deep at the juncture of her shoulder, and then he's latched on and is hungrily suckling.

With his other hand, he lifts her heavy skull, cradling it to his throat. The carotid artery jerks against her lips. The hairs behind his ear smell of Macassar oil.

Then she opens her mouth, fangs sinking in, blood spurting and plunging the scene into pitch darkness...

 _Those were the first ways I suffered to get my babies,_ Diva says.

 _They wouldn't be the last._

Darkness spins and spangles.

 _It wouldn't all be suffering, either_ _…_

From the darkness, a blossom of light.

It is a mesmerizing light, golden and warm. In its glow, Solomon's face coalesces into view. The green eyes radiating a languid heat, the lashes heavily furled. Their half-clothed bodies are tangled together on dew-tipped grass; shafts of sunlight dance across the forest floor, dazzlingly bright.

Solomon is balanced above her on the pale columns of his arms, burying himself inside her with soft gasps. And Saya's own body is Diva's body, and Diva clings to him with rapturous sighs and rolling hips. He plies her with fluttering kisses that send shivers through her, shivers that intensify in her groin. And then his fingers are between them, thumb swirling, a ribboning pleasure pulling her body taut and tearing in two as she tosses her head and she cries out—

 _Solomon_.

Her golden boy. Her favoritest of favorites.

He is the one to stir inside her the first sparks of pleasure in place of the ache of tedium. The first one to savor her body, filling up the cracks inside her with song. He buys her dresses and takes her dancing, reads her stories and makes her laugh. Between them, they invent a hundred different ways to kiss, and a hundred more to make love, the sweetness of discovery glowing between them like a tiny nebula of rainbows.

 _He gave me peace,_ Diva says to Saya. _Even happiness of a kind._

 _But no babies._

The scene changes again, pale blots in darkness, icebergs of lost time. _Flash_ : Diva sliced apart on the coldness of metal tables, Amshel probing with lascivious fingers into the blood-slick treasure-trove of her womb. _Flash_ : Diva swallowing tinctures and torments to Amshel's murmurs that everything is For Her Own Good. _Flash:_ A spasm of shrieks, a rictus of agony, blood drenching bedsheets down to the mattress while her Chevaliers hover anxiously at her bedside.

A final _flash_ :

Diva spinning like a dervish in the Zoo's gardens, then slowing at the delicate _thub-thub_ of a boy's heartbeat. Diva looming before the trembling curl of Riku's body in Red Shield's ship, his eyes two glossy mirrors that reflect her smile. And then the smile shading into hunger, fangs sinking into a boy-neck and the first deep pull suffusing her body with a hot glow of _YesYesYes_ while Saya's own mind splits apart on a wallop of pain like a spiked mace, a despairing call of _Not Riku not Riku not Riku_ _—_

In her ear, Diva whispers: _So much agony to have my babies. So much spilled blood._

 _Whereas all you had to do was ask._

 _After killing me first..._

Then there is nothing _but_ pain, Saya's whole body in the grip of a blindsiding shock, a tumor of blood and darkness and teeth and choking and _stopstopstop_ —

 _Ssh, sister,_ Diva coaxes. _A pound of flesh. A drop of blood._

 _You wanted to repay me, right?_

Saya screams, a ragged hitching sound, and crashes down to earth.

"Saya!"

Thudding footsteps. Shapes surrounding her.

Flinching, she curls into herself. Trying to block out the nauseating loop of sensation, to evade the stinging sandstorm of scent and sound and sight. Her mouth is open, and she hears screams as if from far away, torn red scarves pulled from her throat.

"What the hell's going on?!"

"I dunno. She fell off the high dive. Help me get her up!"

"Shit—is she hurt?"

"A gash on her head. The bleeding's already stopped."

Wafts of chlorine, overlaid by sunblock cream. Familiar voices in the periphery of her crash-zone. Yumi and Yuri. V and Sachi. Then someone scoops her up.

"Saya," a soft voice says. "Are you all right?"

She opens her eyes. Sees the pale contours of Haji's face, the dark tendriled hair framing a soft blue regard that she can't shake.

A lure leading her into stillness.

Just like that, the world returns in a trick of light. The sprawl of her body surfaces with it. Her right ankle is throbbing. Her ribcage feels splintered.

Gingerly, she lays her palm on her belly. Her heartbeat makes her fingertips quiver strangely.

 _As if_ _—_

Haji smooths the mussed hair from her brow. He and Kai are kneeling over her. Clustered loosely around them are the twins, their Chevaliers, David and Julia, Dee and Adam. Anxiety tugs their features into near-identical knots.

How many times have they played this out before? Dozens, it feels like.

"Saya, what happened?" Kai asks. "Did you have a blackout?"

 _Yes. No._

The vision cartwheels behind Saya's eyes. Diva's voice. The blueness of her eyes. She senses her sister in the _zing_ of tension at her nape. Her body feels sticky, strange, like someone borrowed it without her consent.

And left behind a memento.

 _Could it be?_

"Get her upstairs," Julia says. "I'll examine her."

Murmurs of assent. She feels herself lifted. Her head lolls sideways to rest against Haji's shoulder.

"Shh, Saya," he murmurs. "You will be all right."

She tries to smile for him. But her attention is elsewhere. _Inside_. A slow-gathering shock that races along her pulsepoints, re-concentrating around the two soft living knots in her belly.

 _Oh._ Her pulse ratchets in dizzying epiphany. _Oh._

Motion-blurs. The splendor of the Soleil Suite. Her body lowered into the downy softness of the bed. For a moment, Haji hovers over her. Blocking out all else, a winter moon fit for parables and poetry. Saya can't resist putting up a hand to touch his cheek. His eyes soften, calm but with an edge of concern.

"What's the matter?" he whispers.

"I—I think—"

"Haji? Please let me take it from here."

Julia is at the doorway. With serene efficiency, she shoos the Chevalier out. Proceeds, guided by a methodical mapwork, to inspect Saya for fractures. Her words are a low-pitched murmur, her eyes downcast in concentration as she works.

Yet there is a pinch between her brows. When she lays her palms on Saya's belly, it deepens into a frown.

"Saya," she says, "Are you experiencing any abdominal pain?"

Saya stares up at her. "Huh?"

"Cramps?"

"No?" She tries to hoist herself up. "Miss Julia. What—?"

"Please stay still." Julia carries on with her exam. Her touch is gentle. Yet each time it passes near Saya's belly, it lingers. Under her breath, she murmurs, "…I'll call in to conduct a sonogram."

"What?"

Julia blinks, first at Saya's belly, then at her face. The seconds crawl by. Saya feels herself going self-conscious under the woman's laserlike focus. She recognizes that look from the war. More disconcerting is when Julia shifts closer, the laser eyes softening into lovingconcern; and then her hands envelop Saya's own. She smells of lavender and has the soft, stunned, sympathetic gaze of Joan Blondell in Dad's favorite black-and-white film, _Cry Havoc._

"What is it?" Saya is half-braced for disaster. "What's happened?"

"The unexpected," Julia sighs. "Or inevitable."

" _What_?"

Julia answers. The prelude is a jangle of medical jargon. But its conclusion is a two-syllable word.

 _Pregnant._

Saya moves her hand, in a mute hypnotism of—hope? horror?—and lays it across her stomach.

 _Mine_. It sinks into her heart, a depth-charge that ignites a thousand voices. _Mine_.

 _Not just yours,_ Diva whispers in her ear. _Ours._

* * *

"What the _hell_?!"

The glossy white-bordered sheets are making the rounds.

"You're kidding me!"

Passed from hand-to-hand, smudged by fingerprints.

"No way! There is _no way_!"

They are all arrayed around a table in the Zoo's underlit restaurant: Yumi and Yuri, V and Sachi, Kai and Dee. Julia sits picking with a fork at a slice of chocolate cake. Evidently the news is momentous enough to spoil her diet. Across her, David has his hands steepled together, giving the prints of the ultrasounds his utmost attention.

They don't look like much: incandescent whites in a black background. But they delineate the crux of the issue. Two shapes the size of sweet peas, with rings of paleness banding a dark pupil of embryo. Nearly six weeks. That's how Julia described their appearance in human terms.

How fast they'll burgeon into maturity... that remains to be seen.

David downs a mouthful of his coffee. Too sweet; he grimaces at the taste. "Shit."

The others' heads swivel his way.

"That's a little harsh," mutters Kai, and David finds himself annoyed at the belligerence he knows Kai isn't projecting, yet nonetheless manages to radiate with every snarky word out of his mouth.

Snark. Mouth. Kiss.

Dee's new _boyfriend_.

Good old-fashioned resentment eclipses David's shellshock at the ultrasounds. He takes another swallow of coffee, and lets both drain away. He needs to be an adult.

"When will Saya be due?" he asks Julia.

His wife slides a hefty forkful of cake into her mouth. "Twelve months from now."

"That long?"

"Mm." Julia chews consideringly, and swallows. "Gestation is complicated for Chiropteran Queens. As I've mentioned, they delay fertilization by storing the sperm in a reproductive tract. Conception usually doesn't begin until several months afterward. It's certainly evident in Yuri's and Saya's case. They both came to me for routine check-ups throughout the year. Yet neither of them showed any indications of pregnancy."

Dee rests her chin on her palm, eyeing the ultrasounds. "Until, _mirabile visu_ , they did."

Julia nods. "Once gestation begins, it's a time-consuming process. The fetuses don't grow in stages—but in accelerated bursts in between dormant periods. For example, Saya is only a few days along. Yet her ultrasounds are already at the six-week mark in human terms. They will remain this way until at least three months—then experience another growth spurt. This will carry on for twelve months, until they are physically incapable of further growth. That's why newborn Queens are as big as two-month-olds. Anything larger would lead to Erb's palsy—where the child's body gets stuck in the birth canal, resulting in bone fracture."

"Is that what the cocoons are for?" Yuri asks, a juice bottle balanced between her precise fingers. "Keeping them safe and nourished year-round, once they're out of the womb?"

Julia nods again. "In utero, the cocoons resemble the amniotic sac of human babies. But they're much sturdier. Almost like opaque bubble-wraps. They keep the baby Queen cushioned from blows. As she grows, the cocoon fills with fluid. For human babies, this is typically water. For Chiropterans, the cocoons are filled with blood. The fetuses absorb nutrients and biochemical products from the blood."

"Like in Joel's Diary," Yuri muses. "They dripped blood over Saya's and our mom's cocoons. Until they, er, hatched."

"Hatched is a good way to put it," Julia says. "Alternately, we'd call it _concluded diapause._ The end of the fetuses' dormancy cycle. This is triggered by a host of factors: temperature, humidity, nutrients. It's similar to a Queen's hibernation. Her cocoon maintains homeostasis, for decades at a time, until she's physically ready to awaken. The babies' cocoons are similar. In Diva's case—" She chooses her with care. "Your mother had the cocoons removed from her belly. Possibly to avoid danger, since she was at war with Saya. For all we know, this could be common among Chiropteran Queens. To minimize risks to themselves and their offspring, or to achieve greater mobility when hunting for food. In such cases, the fetuses would be nourished externally, through blood and sunlight. Similar to how you and Yuri were."

"Until we came out by ourselves." Yumi traces greasy circles around her plate with a spoon. Her breaded cutlets resemble puzzle pieces; she's barely taken a bite. "Right before… our mother died."

The sisters exchange glances, a knot of wistful silence between them.

Kai reaches out, gently ruffling their hair. "Kudos on the timing. You were so cute we had to take you home."

Yumi musters a little smile, and links her fingers with Yuri's.

David watches them from the corner of his eye. Moments like these, his dislike over Dee's choice of man struggles with attempts at acceptance. Kai may be stubborn as a rock, with half the braincells. But he is also incurably well-meaning. Dee can… well, she can certainly do _better_. But she can also do much, much worse.

Clearing his throat, David says: "Saya's case is different. We have data on Queens impregnated by their sister's Chevalier. But nothing on a Queen falling pregnant with her own Chevalier."

"It does complicate matters," Julia agrees. "That's why I've advised Saya to take every precaution. We can only make calculated guesses about how her pregnancy will go."

"I'm amazed it occurred at all," Yuri sighs. "If I'd known..."

V crooks a brow, wryly teasing. "Havin' second thoughts?"

"What? N-No!" She blushes, but doesn't waver. "It's a done deal. A good deal." Her other hand reaches for Sachi's; he squeezes hers in both his own. "But I had no idea the alternative was possible."

"Me neither," Yumi pouts. "Does it mean me and V might be able to, er…?"

Julia shakes her head. "From what Ezra and my research is gathering, this happens in rare circumstances. Grim ones."

"Grim?"

"It occurs after the death of one Queen. When both are alive, they synchronize each other's fertility cycles via pheromones. These make it possible for the Queens' ovaries to maintain reproductive fitness. And to practice selective conception."

Sachi frowns. "And when, umm, one Queen dies?"

"That's murkier to explain. But Saya's condition makes it apparent that an auxiliary chemical system takes over. Whereas a Queen's body usually destroys the sperm of her own Chevalier, the absence of her sister's pheromones triggers a type of superovulation. Encouraging her to get pregnant with any Chevalier at her disposal. Even her own."

"You make it sound like her own Chevalier is a standby," Sachi muses.

Julia is thoughtful. "It could be the case. Nature's way of ensuring the species stay alive. But—"

"What?" David asks.

"Superovulation isn't enough to guarantee conception. I've noted before that the D/S factor is necessary for successful fertilization. The seminal proteins of each sister's Chevalier form a mating plug. The chemicals in this plug, once they diffuse into a Queen's bloodstream, affect the receptors near her brain. They stop the _Kiss of Death_ —where her body becomes inhospitable to her Chevalier's sperm as a defense against infection." She shifts in her seat. "Saya must have taken something—a medication—for her body chemistry to about-face so suddenly."

David frowns alertly at this development. "Did she?"

"She wouldn't say."

"Are you concerned the pregnancy could put her at risk?"

"No. Her condition appears stable." Julia hesitates. "It's her state-of-mind that concerns me."

Her words hang unambiguously at the table. Everyone exchanges looks. They all know there are only so many ways Saya has been maintaining her precarious mental health. Each upswing of stability has been followed by lapses—minor or major—as she struggles to find her footing. Now, she must confront the complications of Red Shield, a potential enemy ... and a pregnancy

"You think she'll be all right?" David asks.

Julia's silence prolongs itself past comfort. For once, his brilliant, balanced, beautiful wife seems ill-at-ease.

"That," she says, "may depend on what the coming months bring."

* * *

 _Mama._

Saya lets the word buzz in her skull. Her brain feels bee-stung with disbelief.

 _M_ _è_ _re._

In a trance, she plays the grand piano at the patio. The space is beautifully proportioned in the style of a gazebo: all burnished wood and polished glass, its interior sumptuously decorated with a single chandelier and ceiling roses. A grove of tall trees shadows the gardens. Sunlight filters through their leaves, turning the room softly gold, a space outside of time.

 _Maman,_ Saya thinks, _Mother._

Her fingers dance across the keys. She picks through Schnittke's _Sonata #1_ —the same composition Haji was playing by the pool. She doesn't have his songbook. She plays the melody from memory, _à_ _l'oreille_ as they say. It is a strange piece, full of dreamlike intervals and the high-pitched eerieness of _fermata_ , with bursts of inarticulate frenzy underscoring the harmonic progression. Not _Haji_ at all. Her Chevalier prefers the gravid stateliness of Bach or the twilit serenity of Beethoven.

Perhaps he'd played it with Saya in mind? Challenging, volatile, crazy…

Saya flinches. On reflex, her hand goes to her belly.

 _I'm not crazy._

 _Neither is this._

This.

A biological anomaly, or a gift from the universe? She isn't sure. But she flushes all over, thrilled at it taking root. Here, at the Zoo, where Haji was brought for the sole purpose of making it happen. If Joel were alive, he'd be on cloud nine.

 _If Joel were alive, this wouldn't happen at all_ _…_

Misgiving blossoms, the darker twin of joy. She remembers Joel as he was to her. She remembers Joel as he was to Diva. After-images from the vision on the high-dive still linger. It's as if the psychic split that kept widening over the weeks, _Diva_ -ness seeping into herself, in dreams and reveries, has cracked open.

She can _feel_ her sister filling her. She shimmers in the refracted light of Saya's joy—and the dark nucleus of her babies-to-be.

A guardian angel? Or a memento mori?

 _Dreams and daughters,_ Auntie Yu said. _Snakes and sisters. Don't go fearin' none._

Was this what she'd meant?

The door creaks open. Saya feels a cool spot on her nape like a cloud of breath.

 _Haji_.

She glances around. Her Chevalier stands at the entrance, his hand resting on the knob of the door. The room is evenly golden. His body is an elongated black mass against the sunlight, a close-range eclipse at once translucent and solid.

Their eyes meet, but there is no conversation. Instead, he crosses over to the piano. Saya shivers as he settles beside her. Even with his profile cast sideways, there is a potent thrall in the shape of his head under its elegant tapestry of curls, the intent stillness of his body, the line of his arm moving like a dark brushstroke through the air. His hands join hers on the keys.

They used to do the same thing in their childhood, an elaborate musical game where they vied against each other to see who'd trip up and miss a note. Saya always won. At least in the early days, before Haji grew taller, his fingers longer and more dexterous. Then he could best her in practically any contest where food wasn't involved.

This isn't a contest.

Saya smiles as their hands flicker in tandem across the keys. The _Fantaisie Impromptu._ The melody flows differently from both of them. Saya sets her own pace, full of reckless passion and a dash of melancholy. Haji's rhythm is more precise, more technically polished, but _avante garde_ enough to meet Saya in a subtle undercurrent of playfulness. It's like a physical manifestation of their togetherness: the static of politesse dissolving into something more profound, the subdued lines of connection sparking sweet and strong.

Until Saya has a seasick redux of her vision:

 _The sunlight warped into dust-lit grittiness. Diva sprawled in her tower as Amshel takes her, the act obscene in its brutality, her sister's own smile reflected in the glossy dark of Riku's eyes as she replicates the transgression, not for its own sake, but in the name of taking and keeping something of her own._

Diva whispers in her ear:

 _Same as you, Saya._

 _Wasn't that what you wanted?_

Saya's fingers stumble across the keys. The melody jerks to a clumsy stop. She feels nauseous and heartsick and wants to cry.

"Saya?" Haji touches her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Mm." Her throat emits the sound on a tremor. Self-consciously, she rises. "Will you, um, walk with me?"

"Are you well enough to? After your fall—"

"I'm all right."

"Saya—"

"Please?"

Haji sighs, stubbornness in the set of his shoulders. Saya can imagine a few years down the line how he'll make the same small, compressed sound when their daughters ask to go exploring the beach alone, or to the movies with friends, or on dates with boys. (Or girls. She's willing to be open-minded.)

Rising, Haji offers her an arm. Saya tucks her hand into it, and feels an uncanny déjà vu, an echo if their child-selves— _Shall we take a turn through the garden? Yes, let's._

Outside, the warmth of the evening sun, diffused through the green canopy of leaves, makes a soft gold umbra around their heads. The wind engages through dozens of the strands, motes of Saya's own scent carrying in the air.

A hormone-scented mist.

The emerald fringe of forest is drenched in silence. The scenery is uncannily familiar—from the rustling carpet of fallen leaves to the blue sky to the pale light flickering through the treetops. A path she and Haji walked, a century ago, when they were children.

She wonders if their old footprints still remain.

Tentatively, she says, "This …reminds me of where we used to play hide-and-seek."

Haji's gaze slews across the trees. "It could be."

"I remember we used to gather peaches. And pelt each other with the stones."

Now the blue eyes glint dryly at her. "I seem to recall _you_ doing the pelting."

"It wasn't unprovoked! You kept putting caterpillars in my hair!"

"They were… fuzzy."

"That hardly makes them _accessories_!"

A tiny smile cracks his composure. "Perhaps it was an excuse."

"For what?"

"For stripping away your frill of hauteur." His seriousness is illusion now. She hears the old flippancy beneath. "I found I preferred you that way. Bare to the touch. In a manner of speaking."

Blushing, she pinches his arm. "What manner would _that_ be?"

He only smiles, and aims the smile out across the gardens. After a beat, he asks, "Are we going to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"Your fall." His lightness fades. "Your state."

"My— _oh_."

She stops walking, and her hand drops from his. Their gazes meet. The closeness of Haji's scrutiny defies its own casualness. She wonders how long he's known. Perhaps long before Julia shared the news with her—uncanny and all-knowing as he is. She tries to read his expression, but that is tricky work. She thinks, instead, of how he'd been playing Schnittke's _Sonata #1_ _—_ a melody brimful with ominous bass threads and exhilarated quavers of fugato, a whirlwind of hopefulness magnified into hyperbole.

A reflection of his feelings?

Then Haji reaches out. Cool fingertips feeling her skin, her pulse. Smoothing back her hair. The familiarity of the touch is wedded with different meanings. Something both possessive and paranoid, as if he is tracking a threat beneath her skin.

"You are warm," he says.

"It's, um, heat flush," she says. "Julia said it's common."

"Common?"

"In the early months."

There is a marvel in the conversation. The ordinariness of what was extraordinary barely a week ago. Maybe Haji feels it too. His mouth opens, as if to speak. With a jittery breath, he closes it.

Without warning, he snatches her in.

Saya yelps, caught off-balance before he enfolds her in his arms, sweeping her across the grass so her sandals fall off and her bare feet skim the blades. The forest blurs into a riot of colors.

She giggles, giddy, high-strung. " _Haji_ — _what_ —?"

"Sssh."

Squeezing her hard, Haji dots kisses through her hair. His face, sepulcher-white, bears a strange expression. She can't describe it: a tug-of-war between doldrums and delirium.

Touching his forehead to hers, he whispers, "Then it is true?"

She can't pretend at nonchalance. She nods.

"How do you feel? Truly?"

"I'm—" She blushes, trying to pick her way across the unsteady surface toward honesty. "I'm all right. Julia says the fall didn't… hurt… anything. The ultrasounds are good. But she's told me to be careful. There's zero information on something like this. I should monitor my sleeping... and stressing."

"Then I must make certain you do."

Gently, he sets her to her feet. But his hands remain cradling her body. It reminds her of a protective buffer. His gaze is the same, sizing up the soft vulnerability of her belly as if fitting her for body-armor.

"It's… not really showing yet," Saya says.

Haji shakes his head. "I can hear them."

"What?"

"The heartbeats. Mixed with yours. Three different keys."

"Like music?"

"Like a siren." His eyes meet hers. "It has been that way since you fell off high dive."

Saya's heart shivers in her chest. "I—"

"Please. Tell me what happened? Why did you scream?"

Saya flinches. A trickle of sweat makes its way, snakelike, down her spine. Again, the vision looms; she shoves it aside.

"You have been …off since we came here. Before that." Haji's hand comes up, thumb sketching across her cheek. He regards her with a look that is all seriousness, but with a glint of pleading. "Something is troubling you, Saya. Something that has nothing to do with the children. Tell me what it is?"

 _Tell me the truth,_ he means. The truth whose unsaid gravity is a sinkhole during even their happiest moments. She could undo that. Tell him about Diva. The visions. The sensation of her sister inhabiting her skin, nesting cozily around her daughters, half-premonition, half-prophecy.

 _The truth will set you free, right?_

Except it feels less like freedom, than an act with zero recourse. What if he doesn't believe her? She's been balanced on the edge of sanity's razor since her Awakening. Before that. What if he thinks she's slipped off? They are going to be parents soon. Bonds such as theirs should be the fiercest, broken only by extreme disaster.

 _Or madness._

He _will_ pronounce her mad. Worse, he'll say she's in no state for motherhood. The possibility terrifies her.

"It—it's nothing." Her smile wavers only a little. "I've always been, um. Accident prone."

Something flits across Haji's face. Something worse than anger. Disappointment. Then he glances away, and his profile smooths over.

"Accident prone," he says tonelessly. "I see."

"Haji…"

He shakes his head. "While you are in this… state… I think it is best we keep apart."

"Apart?"

"In separate rooms."

"What? _Why_?"

"Because of—"

"The _babies_?" She'd laugh if it didn't feel like she was collapsing inside. " _Tu_ _ê_ _tes tellement d_ _é_ _mod_ _é_ _!_ You know nothing will happen if—"

" _Ce n'est pas_ _ç_ _a_." He flexes his hands, curling and uncurling the fingers. Tics of turmoil only she can read. "The …blackouts… you keep having. Perhaps being around me makes them worse? Old memories shifting in your head. Now that you are pregnant, you should rest. It would be selfish of me to—"

Dread—pent-up, immense—crackles through Saya. Her hands ball into fists, mirroring his pose. "Do you really believe that? I'm getting worse, not better?"

"We both know 'better' is not so straightforward, Saya. But if I cannot keep you stable—"

"Why do you keep taking that task upon _yourself_?"

The control evaporates; his eyes blaze.

"Because otherwise I am _failing_ you!"

The uncharacteristic sharpness of his tone shocks her into silence.

Temper withdrawn from its sheath, Haji doesn't turn away. His eyes sight hers with piercing directness. "It is true, Saya. I can only make inferences about you anymore. But I don't know you—the real you—at all. Even less than when I was first brought to the Zoo."

"That—that's not true!"

"I do not understand you, Saya. I do not know what you are becoming. Or what role I must play to help you."

 _Becoming._

Stricken, Saya stares. She wants to repeat that it's _not true_. She's the same Saya as before. She and Haji are the closest friends, and he is always needed and wanted. Except there is also, beneath their soft-spun layers of intimacy, a space inside her, expanding not like a baby but a tumor.

It is the source of the underlying tension between them. Their unfought fights skirt its surface but never strike deep. A space rooted in snakes and dreams and Diva, a sphere Haji can't inhabit.

She doesn't want him to. It is too dangerous—for both of them.

 _Some secrets should stay secret_ , Diva whispers.

"Haji."

Reflexively, she reaches out a hand. He moves his body clear of hers.

" _Please_ ," she says. "Don't do this. We should be celebrating. Not—"

"Not having an honest conversation where we talk? Where our time together does not devolve into fighting, or frivolity or fu—"

" _Stop it!"_

Raging, she starts toward him. The moment threatens to devolve into the childhood days when they'd wrestle each other to the ground, cursing and shrieking and slapping. She'd box his ears until they were splotched pink; he'd give her Indian burns until her wrists resembled uncooked sausages. She wonders if this will culminate the same way: both of them rolling in the grass like squabbling brats.

But Haji's expression pulls her up short.

So much misery in his eyes, and in the clench of his white-knuckled hands. So much pleading. Then they slacken. He sinks, slowly, to his knees. His head comes to rest against her midriff. His fingers fold gently through hers. She feels her whole body lulled by the ragged softness of his breathing. Bit-by-bit, the ill-tempered enigma fades; she suddenly sees _him_.

So it always is with Haji. Like a sentinel on standby, reflexes primed to tackle enemies but never emotions. Always, the fighter meets the crisis first, then remembers in its aftermath how to be a person.

Same as her.

"Saya," he whispers. "Forgive me. I am too—"

"What?"

He swallows. His words are husky, haunted. "I am too frightened. By how much you keep struggling. You wish to start a family. But Saya—I think there is a great deal you must first make sense of within yourself. That seems the only way we can truly be together."

Tears spring to her eyes. "So this is more of the same? You don't want childr—"

"I _do_." He tips his head back, his eyes glistening hotly in turn. It stuns her. She hasn't seen Haji cry since they were young. "Saya, you have no idea how happy this makes me. _Too_ happy—which is why I do not trust it. We've waited a long time to play at sweethearts. But it feels like just that. Playing. You are not yet yourself. In light of it, I must put my feelings aside and let you work on getting better."

"I _am_ getting better!"

She doesn't know if it's true or not. Or if _better_ is even the point. All she knows is that she is changing. Not like in the war: calcified beneath an armor of cruelty. This is different. A slow unraveling into the core of herself, a Möbius Strip of selves re-coalescing moment to moment.

Except it's taking a toll on Haji. Each revelation unsettles him, sends them both reeling and reconnecting and ripping away from each other.

It can't continue indefinitely. Not unless she wants to scar his psyche as badly as the rest of him.

"Will it help if I say yes?" she whispers.

"What?"

"For this 'issue' I have. Would you feel easier if I got help for it?"

Haji squeezes her hands in both of his. "I want what makes _you_ feel better, Saya. We spoke once about alternative therapies. Perhaps—"

She nods, slowly. "All right."

"What?"

"I'll talk. When we go home. To a counselor or anyone." A shaky smile. "But I'd feel better talking to _you_."

"You know you can. Always." The soft honesty of this sends shivers through her. She knows he is sincere. Knows that whatever she shares, he will absorb it as the seaside does the moonrays. And maybe she _should_ talk? Maybe it is what she needs?

 _Not now_ , she thinks, conscious of the unreadiness in herself. _Not now_ _—_ _but soon._

"In Okinawa."

Haji blinks. "Hm?"

"I promise we'll talk. Once we return to Okinawa." She knows he will press; he has a quiet air of conflict. She bribes him with a smile. "Now… please tell me you're happy? For the babies? For _us_?"

"Saya." He swallows dryly. "I think—"

"That's your problem. Thinking." Their hands are still clasped together. She tugs coaxingly. " _Please_?"

He nods, but doesn't obey. Still kneeling, he ghosts his cheekbone along her belly, nuzzling with terrible tenderness. Dizzy, Saya braces her hands on his shoulders. Her skin is blotchy from the high flame of emotion. Beneath her blouse, her stomach is innocently smooth—and yet tick-tocking toward explosion.

Haji kisses her there, soft kisses traced around her navel. She gasps, and he doesn't stop. His hands starfish across her hips. He breathes hitched, half-spoken words against her body, cradling it as if it is the crux of myth and life. Her skin goes hot, and its temperature seems to elicit a Pavlovian need he cannot conceal. For once, she sees everything in his face: love, despair, worship, greed.

And the thought comes to her, loaded with the ferocity of biological import:

 _He_ is _happy._

It's a happiness he's clearly never experienced before, so intense he can't grasp it except at the cellular level. Can't express except with repeated circles of kisses: a bullseye, a mandala, a protective sphere inked by touch.

Something he covets as intensely as he covets _her_.

"Haji?" Her fingers skim his cheek "Are you okay?"

He catches her hand, and kisses it.

"No."

"Wh-what?"

He lifts his eyes to hers. Their fervency spooks her; they have come eerily alive. "I am too far gone to even find the word. But mostly... I am grateful." He presses one last kiss to her navel. "I am grateful that you are here. I am grateful your daughters will be, too."

Saya's cheeks go hot. The dread is replaced by a radioactive glow. Full-body meltdown into relief.

She kneels, and his arms pass around her. He squeezes her crushingly tight. Kisses her, not as a token but a lifeline, cool hands splaying up to cradle her skull, his mouth opening against hers, and she shivers at the wild degree of urgency in his touch, a hot blossoming that goes to the deepest part of her.

The air around them is filled with heat and life; her whole body feels redolent with it.

The beating heart of an entire world.

They cling together in the woodland shadow, its outline deliquescing into dusk. Their kisses taste of copper, blood caught in the chinks of their teeth. But, _God_ , this is what she needs, the stinging-pinks of childhood melting into the flame-reds of change, their bodies stirring the space that's been too long stagnant since the Zoo burned down.

"Our daughters, Haji." She smiles into his eyes, their foreheads together. " _Ours_."

A fresh start for both of them.

 _And for Diva._

* * *

CLASS CONFIDENTIAL

REASON: XY, 1.25(e)

FOR RECIPIENT ONLY

-FORWARDED MESSAGE-

FROM: C****** A*******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

Scouts have reported from France.

Saya will be in transit soon.

We also intercepted confidential correspondence b/w Red Shield agents. 2 of the Queens are pregnant.

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: C****** A*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Saya's nieces?

FROM: C****** A*******

* * *

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

Even wilder.

1 niece is knocked up.

So is _Saya_.

* * *

FROM: C****** A*******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

Torrir?

u still there?

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: C****** A*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Make travel arrangements.

I will ascertain the news for myself.

* * *

 _Next chapters: madness, misery and mayhem._

 _Hope you enjoyed, and review pretty please!_


	31. August

_Cheese and crackers, this was a tricky chapter to write. Finally introducing August, and getting into the thick of Red Shield's leadership crisis. Also watching Saya's fragile house of cards come crashing down. TW for moments of racism, sexism, transphobia, and general unsavoriness. The gang deal with a decidedly unpleasant breed of jerkass._

 _Also strong TW in the final section for miscarriage. It's meant to be the whammy to close the chapter. But the experience is traumatizing enough in RL that I have no intention of concealing it for cheap shock value._

 _As always, I eagerly welcome all comments and critiques. I'm super nervous about this installment, so your feedback means everything to me!_

* * *

The days after the announcement bring greater change.

Saya was ready to fly back to Okinawa. She'd counted on it. She wants to be among familiar surroundings with the pregnancy underway. Pleasant weather, favorite foods. David and Dee have both assured her the island is secure. She can begin a semblance of a life once she's there. She can fully absorb the pregnancy for _herself_ ; right now, her feelings about it are like a weathervane in a complex storm, changing direction every moment. Joy. Dread. Excitement. Anxiety. Her mind is nearly as busy as her body, atoms multiplying a mile a minute.

But just as she and Haji are preparing to depart, Joel's secretary calls.

 _Can Mademoiselle Otonashi delay her flight until Joel's will is sorted out?_

It is barely partway through the conversation, which is less a request than a badly-disguised plea, that Saya understands what shambles Red Shield has fallen into. Joel had left provisional instructions in the event of his death. But without the stability of his leadership, everything is spinning out of orbit. Franz, clueless in affairs of _The Family Business_ , is trying to keep things together. But the feat is becoming impossible with his mother imbibing glass after glass of cognac. The entire family needs counseling and time to grieve.

For the foreseeable future, he is out of commission.

With Franz gone, the board have begun squabbling among themselves. It was as Joel had warned her. Personal agendas overshadowing the mission. Each chairman has a candidate, whom he pushes for approval to the detriment of all else.

From the Goldschmidt's bloodline, Joel had handpicked August. _Unconventional_ , as he'd described. Saya sees why: his protégé is a half-French, half-British twenty-something barely out of University. Shy, freckle-faced and gangly, with a curly shock of hot-pink hair, a fondness for scruffy oxfords, patched tweed jackets, facial piercings and gender-neutral pronouns.

He?—she?— _Ne_ has been detached from the organization for three years, studying Southeast Asian Cultures at Oxbridge.

Saya stays to greet the newcomer, who is wan and horribly sick from the overnight flight to Bordeaux. She also does her best to make sure a passable team is in place, for coaching and grooming, until August adjusts to the duties of Joel. She isn't up to the task herself. In her time, she has seen a number of Joels rise and fall. None of them had gelled well with her—finding her too unnerving, or too human, or too monstrous. None of them had treated her as a person.

Except the last Joel.

She is in a hurry to leave. But escape is not a possibility. One glimpse of August—full of youthful jitters and hopeful earnestness—and she can't help but see her old amnesiac self superimposed. She can't go back on her promise to Joel. And she can't abandon the Mission. She _is_ the Mission—or was—and August is already looking to her for guidance.

 _The blind leading the blind._

So she stays, postponing her return another week, then another. Haji stays too, which stirs up itchy feelings of guilt. She is coming to realize, in expanding layers of pride and loss, that her Chevalier had a complex life before she'd crashed back into it. A life that may not allow for last-second excursions, where he follows her everywhere, without question.

So she suggests that he return to Okinawa.

"I know you've never cared much for Red Shield's politics," she says later that evening, as they sit side-by-side at the Zoo's gazebo. "There's no reason for you to stay."

Haji shakes his head. "It is not a matter of politics, Saya. My place is with you."

"But—"

"Do you truly believe I would abandon you at a time like this?" His palm rests on her belly. "In a state like this?"

 _State_.

A peculiar way to put it. But he seldom puts it another way.

"I'll be fine on my own," she says. "I'm keeping in touch with Julia. She says everything's progressing normally."

"It always does. Until it doesn't."

"What?"

He doesn't elaborate. But she shivers at that dark resolution in his expression that is so rarely glimpsed. Lately, she's becoming aware of that facet of his nature: a natural mechanism sharpening his softness to steel. It has been present a long time; Saya simply never witnessed it in its undiluted form.

Until she fell pregnant.

"We will remain together until the matter is resolved," he says. "But if—"

"What?"

"If there is no solution in sight, you must return to Okinawa."

"Haji—"

"Please, Saya. I know you feel an obligation to Red Shield. But in light of everything, you must plan for _your_ life now. Yours, and the new ones that will come."

"I-I know that."

"Then promise me." His thumb strokes her midriff. "This is not your life's work any longer."

She stares at the pale splay of his palm on her stomach. In his quiet inflexibility is a pledge that never wavers. It reassures her, even as his words resonate disconcertingly through her. Because even with him there—her best friend and protector and lover, now the father of her daughters-to-be, it doesn't ease her deep alienation, or the sense of being at home nowhere anymore.

 _Not my life's work._

 _Then what_ is _my life's work?_

She tries not to think of it.

With Haji by her side, she tells herself that she needs no other company. Not Kai, who must return to Omoro. Certainly not Yumi and Yuri, who are still too young to be bogged down by Red Shield's bureaucratic ballgames—the same ones Saya fought tooth and nail against for over a century.

She doesn't want her nieces involved in this mess. Not when their lives are so wonderfully rich and ordinary back home. Especially not when Yuri is so blissful in her early days of pregnancy. Around her, Saya feels hinky, curious, embarrassed—and angry with herself for feeling that way. She finds that she can't talk about her own condition—which sometimes doesn't seem like a condition at all but a dark stew of hopes sloshing around in her gut.

So she kisses her family goodbye, and sends them off to Okinawa.

Deidra and David remain. They are her handlers, and have as much stake in Red Shield as she does. With them as her rearguard, caught in an autopilot of blurred focus, she works on steadying Red Shield before it topples. There are preparations and paperwork, plans and protocol. Endless itineraries of _Dos_ and _Don'ts_. The tedium is exhausting, yet it keeps her from thinking about too much else.

Thinking about where her life will go, now that she's gotten her wish.

She tells herself Joel's legacy must be preserved. Diva is dead, but Red Shield still plays a part in ensuring the Bordeaux Sunday never repeats itself—or that some shadowy new organization doesn't use Chiropterans as war-weapons.

Now, more than ever, vigilance is necessary.

For Yumi, Yuri—and her own daughters.

Saya's own role is murkier, but she is ready to knuckle down, be part of a bigger purpose. There'd been a time when it came easier: she'd been more resilient when Diva was alive. Conditioned, because she had to be. Even when swept up in tragedy—George's death, Riku's murder—she'd reverted quickly if not willingly into the groove of a warrior.

That was how she'd coped with every loss, working toward her twin's death as the ultimate reprisal.

Now Diva is dead, and things seem to have dwindled. As if the war's conclusion, and Joel's death, mean not a new beginning—but a dead end.

 _The birth of my daughters will fix that._

From Paris, she travels with August's entourage to Red Shield's next base of operations in Bonn. Then Vienna. Then Warsaw. Then Kiev. Then Moscow. Recementing old ties, forging new ones: a fastforwarded haze of airplane windows, phonecalls, front-desk check-ins, meetings, cigarette smoke, handshakes that start off civil as if at metaphorical sword-point and which end with shouts and slammed doors and literal swords all but unsheathed.

Most of Red Shield's financiers either don't approve of August as the new Joel, or demand to see their own candidate take the reins. For others, their dislike toward Saya—toward all Chiropterans—has burrowed in bone-deep: they have already lost too many friends and family in support of her cause. Others still, with the late Joel dead and buried, fail to see a further purpose for Red Shield at all.

The organization has completed its mission. So has Saya. Now it's time to move on.

Their inaction is familiar—infuriatingly so. Saya had been through the ordeal before, more than once, after the Bordeaux Sunday, and several times after. But she's forgotten just how excruciating it can be: the politics and pettiness, the clash of outsized egos.

All the best lessons she's learned have been in fields and foxholes, battling her enemies. She has no patience for the stuffy confines of boardrooms. No patience for men with fancy loafers and manicured nails and nine-figure-incomes, their lives carrying the safe stagnancy of a goldfish in a crystal bowl—at least until their paths cross with a different breed of predator, with bloodlust and sharp teeth and cunning ways hidden beneath the air of urbane civility.

Someone like that Chevalier who'd attacked her.

Someone who will seize the opportunity for wrongdoing, while Red Shield flounders.

"Are they really so _dense_?" she asks Haji at the hotel, sitting tense-limbed yet exhausted at the edge of their bed. "Don't they understand what'll happen if someone tries to repeat what Goldsmith Holdings began? What Cinq Flèches nearly succeeded in?"

Haji shakes his head. "They are old men, Saya. Well past retirement. They cannot picture a world-ending crisis when it has been quiet the last thirty years."

"Quiet shouldn't excuse _complacence_. If IBM-UAWA have the right resources, it could be enough to—"

"It is true. But the war is still fresh for you. For them, it is ancient history."

"Ancient history like me."

"I did not say that."

"But you're wondering if we're wasting our time out here."

This makes his eyebrows twitch. "Now you are putting words in my mouth."

"Only because you barely offer any of your _own_." The stress of the entire day is creeping hotly from her tiptoes to her hairline, making her burn with agitation. With a breath, she forces it down. "Do you think I shouldn't have gotten involved? That this is a fool's errand?"

"I think you are doing your best to preserve what we fought for."

"But my best is not enough. Is that it?"

"I never said that."

"But you _implied_ it _._ "

"You keep hearing things I never—"

"Oh God. I am." Chagrin fills her. She drops her head into her hands. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be taking my frustration out on you. You dropped everything just to be here with me."

Haji's gentle voice carries across the ten feet of space to her. "I belong at your side, Saya. We have settled that."

"I know. I _know_. It's just—" She blows out a breath. In a different tone, "I don't know what I'm meant to do now. I thought I did, but—"

"What?"

"Nothing." She gathers her self-possession. "Just thinking out loud."

"Please think louder. Because I do not understand."

"Neither do I."

Rousing, she gets out her cellphone. The planner says they have five hours to rest. Then they must catch the six-a.m. flight at the airport—a nonstop route from Moscow to Stockholm. Her head pounds just thinking about it. She is vibrating all over, coasting on raw adrenaline beneath the ache of fatigue. Has been since Joel's funeral, the weeks since then elapsing in a surreal shell-shock.

It was like that in the war, too. Except the war had never carried such a stale air of futility.

"Saya?"

She blinks. "—hm?"

Her Chevalier eyes her with careful concern. It isn't the look she's become accustomed to since her Awakening, worn like a covering of armor over his affection, always kept close to the vest. This is different: his eyes flicking edgewise, as if something is fizzing preternaturally beneath her skin.

 _Isn't there, sister?_ Diva whispers in her ear.

"W-what?" Saya asks. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Only—" He hesitates. "I hope you are not pushing yourself so hard to prove something. To yourself. To everyone else."

"Prove what?"

"That you can handle anything. That you are still your old self. The one from the war."

"You're saying I'm not?"

"I am saying you have one mode. All-or-nothing. But it need not be so. Diva is gone. There is no reason to shoulder every burden alone."

 _Diva is gone._

The words, rather than being heard, always seem to float ember-red in the darkness of her mind. Branded there with an acrid sizzle, so her entire body twists around the agony of them. They sound not like an absolution, but an inchmeal death-sentence.

Which makes no sense. She's gotten what she wanted: her miraculous babies. She should be awed, thankful—not mourning for an era rife with despair.

She can't process it, so she squeezes her eyes shut. Exhales, and jerks to her feet. "Diva may be gone. But Red Shield _must_ stay standing. So history never repeats itself."

"Your suffering need not repeat itself, either."

"Haji—"

"You promised to speak with a counselor, Saya. Now, it is twice as necessary."

"I haven't had any… black-outs in weeks."

"But why encourage the possibility with stress? You should be slowing down. _Resting_."

"I can't leave _now_."

"But this is no place for—"

" _Pregnant_ , Haji. Not invalid."

He shakes his head. "Saya. You ought to keep a more frequent correspondence with Julia. Let doctors examine you biweekly. Not—"

"Not now. There's too much at stake. Once our mission is over, I'll slow down."

" _When_ will it be over? It could take weeks—or months. What then? Neither of us has experience in prenatal care. Unless you confer with a Red Shield physician—"

"Haji. _Please_. Not now."

She turns to go. Unexpectedly, he draws her into his arms. It shocks her, because he was never this way as her Chevalier. Or even in the early months as simply her lover.

She isn't used to the quiet possessiveness, even if it is behind closed doors, and can never decide if it's a facet he'd kept hidden in the war, or something entirely new sparked by her condition. Can never decide it she likes it—or if it is another outgrowth of this strange present that is unspooling, day by day, into an unrecognizable future.

Smoothing back her hair, Haji says, "We may be caught up in business. But we should discuss what you plan to do once we return home, Saya."

"Plan to do?"

"With your life. If there will be children—"

He always uses that word. _If_. And it always curdles something in her. No one outside of her family knows about the pregnancy—not August, not the board. She doesn't _want_ them to know yet. Exposing the cherished boon to scrutiny will make it into a scientific mystery to be examined. _Worse_ than that.

She's afraid the lure of children will be pronounced a fatality. Something her body cannot sustain.

Haji's ambivalence makes it worse. Like every _If-But-Maybe_ is a jinx that will undo what is done.

Except he has a point. Her attitude is far from practical. Fixated as she is on the babies, she is still capable of forgetting their enormity, or consigning the future to a puzzle that will solve itself. Her days are too packed with travel, her foreground concentrated on the present. Late at night, coasting between sleep and wakefulness, she tries to go over the finer details. But she never gets anywhere beyond: _Once they're here, I'll know_.

Stubbornly, she's decided it will be like a bolt from the blue. Like the day she'd first heard Diva's song. Suddenly a space inside her that she hadn't even realized was empty became suffused in something powerful and nameless and mysterious. Something that made everything else irrelevant.

Motherhood will be like that.

Out loud, she says, "We'll figure it out later."

"Later can easily become now. We should—"

"Not now." She twists away. "I need to shower."

"Saya—"

"Be in bed."

 _Be in bed._ It is not a motivational cajolery but a plea. Each night, without fail, she showers at their hotel room. Spritzes herself with perfume as a seductive pick-me-up after the day's stale cloud of exhaustion. Slips on a nightie over her damp clean skin—pink satin and white lace trim, in the Valenciennes style she knows Haji likes.

In the mirror, she examines herself. Her body has manifested the barest physical changes. Her breasts are fuller, a pooch to her belly where before she could span her fingers from hipbone to hipbone. Julia has warned her that hormones will make her prone to heat flashes, nausea, fatigue, tears. She's beset by all of those symptoms. But she also feels— _busy_ inside. She tries to imagine a multitude of cells composing her daughters that way: two tiny planets accruing shape.

Vibrating with _life_.

It shouldn't feel the least bit sexy. Yet she is ready to have sex at the remotest chance of it. Like a good Chevalier, Haji seldom refuses her. But it is duty as much as desire. A great deal of his notions on pregnancy are old-fashioned: a gentleman doesn't impose on a lady in her delicate state, she should be resting if not lying in, she shouldn't be traveling but occupying herself with sedate activities…

It lends a distance to their couplings: an exaggerated caution. Yet it is also what she needs: to trade the feverish uncertainty of the babies for the certainty of Haji.

Because Haji _is_ a certainty.

Each night, there is a bittersweet relief in the way he seizes her. The way he confesses his need for her with his whole body. And once they begin, everything else smooths into place. The fullness of him, the force and friction, blooms a matching desire from her own body. A craving that sparks from touch, like that old French phrase _, l'app_ _é_ _tit vient en mangeant._

But afterward, he is closed-off. A kiss, a caress, but little conversation.

He always assures her is happy. Surface happy. Beneath that is an edginess verging on paranoia. She knows he has all the fears of any expectant father: missing appendages, two heads, forked tongues. That there is no prior information on her condition makes his fears loom larger. This is new territory for him. He constantly calls Julia for guidelines about a sleep-schedule and a full-course meal plan. He coaxes Saya into downloading books on parenting/self-help. He makes sure she avoids heat, caffeine, overexertion, danger.

In all ways, he is himself—times fifty. Vigilant to the extreme.

Saya finds that her own response to it can differ extensively, from tenderness to exasperation. She doesn't want to treat her pregnancy like a live grenade. She wants to _enjoy_ it. They've been given this unreal insane _impossible_ thing. Each stage is to be savored. She tries to enlist his help for choosing names. He circumspectly advises her to wait until the birth. She muses about what the babies will look like. He says that as long as they are healthy it doesn't matter. She tries to pick out baby clothes. He begs her to wait until at least the second trimester is underway.

Their priorities are out-of-sync: minutiae versus fancies. Haji's protective sphere centers more on her—her safety, her well-being—than the newcomers in their lives. In a way, he's treating it almost like a crisis to solve.

A _state_.

Maybe it is a defense mechanism? He's wary of the pregnancy disgorging not joy but misery, as so much of their past has been. Or maybe he refuses to enter into what he knows is madness.

A madness that echoes too eerily with Diva's.

Saya has no idea. Alone in bed afterward, her body a slick-skinned starfish on the cool sheets, she shuts her eyes. Touches the shimmering surface of Diva's stone, and prays that this is the right choice.

For herself. For Haji.

For Diva.

* * *

In Stockholm's base, after a tense meeting with the board that lasts well into the night, yet yields no agreement, August gets a phonecall.

A colleague of Joel's, a tough-talking Red Shield heavyweight with clout and connections, is willing to meet with their team. The old man is currently at the big seaport in Pakistan. An arms-dealer who has devoted himself to art collection after retirement, he is trying to cajole a proud Sindhi family to part with an heirloom: a priceless work of wood-carved calligraphy.

 _"If I like you, I'll back you,"_ he tells August. _"But that's a big_ If _."_

"We're well and truly fucked, aren't we?" August sighs, later that evening.

They are in the rear booth of a crowded all-night café. At the steamed-up windows, the letters _neppokdalkohC_ are spelled in reverse, outlined in green neon. In the eerie glow, August's freckled face is drawn and anxious. Two mugs of hot chocolate and a tray of sugar-rolls rest untasted at their table.

The youngster—who possesses a sweet tooth that rivals Saya's—is too disheartened to dig in.

Saya sympathizes. She remembers how difficult it was: torn from her safe, schoolgirly, daughterly life and flung straight into the maw of hell. Forced to abide to a duty that she couldn't pass off to anyone else, even as her best efforts to carry it out fell short, her struggles linked end to end yet endless.

Diva's death, the final prize, was meant to fix that. To make her whole again.

Instead...

Shaking it off, she peers into her mug. "He's our last option, yes. But that's no reason to lose hope."

"Isn't it? They can't _stand_ me, the lot of them. I'm just a clueless kid who can't tell arse from elbow. Not up to the job. Certainly not worthy as the next Joel." August's metal-studded mouth crumples. "Why didn't they make _you_ chief?"

"That's not how it works," Saya says gently. "The title passes to the next oldest Goldschmidt. And with Franz unwilling—"

" _I_ ought to be unwilling too! Surely I have the right to live as I choose?!"

"Not if you're a Shield. Then we have no desires. Only duties."

"That's exactly what Uncle Joel used to say."

"He wanted you to take over. If Franz was ever out of commission—"

"I know, I _know_." August blows out a breath, at once weary and heartsick. "We had that talk many times, Uncle and I. I swore not to let him down."

"Do you feel like you are?" Saya asks carefully.

"I must be. I've no clue what I'm meant to do. Or how to go about filling his shoes. No one's said anything, but I feel them _watching_ me. They're waiting for me to fuck up—since fucking up is all I could possibly excel at."

"Oh August. Don't talk that way."

"I'm being serious, Otonashi!"

"I know. But you can be serious without putting yourself down."

August pouts, and aims the pout pensively across the neon-lit window. In a softer voice, "I do appreciate that you stayed behind. To help me out, and all."

"It's what Joel wanted. But... it's what I want too. To keep Red Shield alive."

To have that security for her family, and her children. But also to have some moral purpose, as a reminder of who she is.

 _Or once was._

"Maybe afterward," August says, "You could tell me about it. Uncle Joel's adventures with you in the war."

"Is that what he called them? Adventures?"

"Oh, he never _called_ them anything." A nose-wrinkle. "They don't talk about the war much, the older generation. Nothing that isn't cut-and-dried."

"No. They wouldn't." _Sometimes the only way to tell a war story is to share the beginning and the end. If it has one_. Then, in a determinedly lighter tone, "Look. We have one last night in Stockholm. Let's not waste it fretting. Do you want to try the Swedish parsnip cake?"

August nods sagely. "Drown our sorrows in sugar."

"Always a girl's best friend."

"Christ. You're so _quaint_ , Otonashi."

"Not quaint. Just... old."

"Old and old-fangled. With your frilly skirts and your pink shoes with matching purses." A titter. "No one's forcing you to be so performatively _girly_. You know that, right?"

Saya hides a smile. There is something reassuring in August's ribbing. The child is from such a different world. Once living an itinerant, wayward, academic life, with pub crawls on weekends and deadlines by Monday mornings. The pressures of Red Shield should be overwhelming, the weight of responsibility crippling. Tougher men have cracked right before Saya's eyes.

Yet for all the gawky jitters, August is proving a sturdy specimen. Trying to make things work. To carve a niche of familiarity and friendship.

Saya tries to meet the effort halfway. "I like the girly stuff," she says. "And not just because it catches people off-guard. But you're right. No one is forcing me. It's just who I want to be."

A pang grips her, thought-fragments passing behind her dipped eyelashes _:_

 _I have that freedom._ _To work, to play, to be a parent._

 _Diva never did._

Shaking it off, she meets August's gaze. "The board have no right to tell _you_ any different, either. You're the new Joel. That's that."

August sighs. "A new Joel with no backing. Half of them still believe that _Joel-ing_ ought to be a 'man's' job."

 _Joel-ing._ Saya's lips twitch. "It used to be. Each Joel was always the eldest son."

"You can't have been okay with that."

"I wasn't. But it's how it was in those days."

"Well, those days are done." August's face becomes, with rarity, animated. Few subjects get him—her— _nir_ going than the obdurate obnoxiousness of, quote unquote, _rich, middle-aged gits who are as foul a bratwurst of ignorance as anything hell could roast up._ "The board should be dragged into the twenty-first century. Kicking and screaming all the way."

"Hopefully you'll be the one to do it."

August wilts. "If I get the chance. As it is, I'm on my last leg."

 _I know the feeling,_ Saya thinks, but dares not say out loud.

* * *

Two days later, their team flies to Karachi in a smog of choking rainfall.

Their contact, Monsieur Télesphore ("Sounds like _Telephone_ ," Dee grumbles, earning a frown from David) isn't there to greet them. He is in a rest-house on the outskirts of the city—a squat porched building that overlooks the slate-gray expanse of the sea. When they make the interminably long drive there, in a jostling old van with feeble air-conditioning, he steps out, flanked by armed guards.

Bald and overweight, with a pinstripe suit and a tufty-browed sneer, he resembles a mafia boss from a crime movie more than a board member.

"Nothing personal," he says. "But what if you twist my arm to make sign papers? _M_ _é_ _fiance est m_ _è_ _re de s_ _û_ _ret_ _é_ _, non_?"

("If we wanted him to sign papers, those two-bit rent-a-cops would be no help," Dee mutters, to another glare from her father.)

The area is in the grip of a power-outage. The hot afternoon is chokingly still, yet thrumming with the cacophonous din of generators. The group's meeting, played out in semi-darkness of the high-ceilinged dining room, grows claustrophobic with cigar smoke, bootlegged alcohol, sweat and insults.

Télesphore takes one look at August and pronounces with all-encompassing disdain: "I didn't know Boy George had a twin." To Deidra: "If this was a wet T-shirt contest, you'd win first place." To Haji: "Only a corpse wears a black suit in hundred degree weather." To David: "Shouldn't you be retired by now? Or dead?" To Saya: "I thought you'd be _taller_."

When the subject pivots to backing August, he refuses flat-out. "Absolutely not. _C'est hors de question_. Joel was a wuss. _More_ than that. A fat-free, decaffeinated, we're-one-big-family, la la woo-woo walking-talking wafer of a _wuss_. But he had smarts and a gift for leadership. Some pasty twat in long-pants won't make the cut."

"Monsieur," Saya begins. The heat—or maybe Télesphore's cigar smoke—is making her head throb.

"Ahhhh. _Pardonnez moi._ Not PC, yes? But it is what it is. The board doesn't like it. And I can see why. Only an idiot chucks his hard-earned _balles_ down the toilet."

"Just because August is green—"

"It's not a matter of _green_. Or brown, or pink, or polka-dotty. It's about understanding human nature. Everyone is like a piece of art. Some, you take one look at, and you know they are priceless. _Diamant brut, oui?_ Others— _pah_. Garage trash with delusions of Picasso."

"You can't just dismiss someone based on—"

"Dismissal? _Mon Dieu. On peut greffer votre cerveau_ _à_ _un macaque!_ This is not dismissal, you clucking hen. It's _knowledge_. I've known winners, and I've known losers. I can sum them up with one glance. I _have_ to, to get what I want from them." He takes a slurp from his smuggled brandy. "It's how I know that snooty family across the street will hand over their _pi_ _è_ _ce de r_ _é_ _sistance_ soon. They're being stubborn—though hell knows I've worked them over with everything in my inventory. Charm. Money. Good marriage prospects for the daughters. But it's all for show, you see. They know, and I know, the artwork will be mine. It as good as belongs to me already. Just like I know this kid—"jerking a thumb at August. "—is better off in a freakshow. _M_ _ê_ _me un idiot pourrait le voir._ "

Saya fights down a spasm of anger. "August is the next Joel by order of succession."

" _Tch_. Open those pretty little eyes of yours, Otonashi. You know better than I do _succession_ has nothing to do with it. Organizations aren't built by amateurs on some hippy-dippy everyone-deserves-a-chance crapola. _Ç_ _a ne marche pas comme_ _ç_ _a._ They're built by the same people who win wars. Crazies and egomaniacs and vipers. People like _you_."

At this, Saya goes perfectly still. "Excuse me?"

Télesphore's laugh is more of an ephysemic hack. His eyes glint into hers—a sly, secret joke. " _Cheh_. Don't look at me like that. Everyone in Red Shield knows it. It's why you are legend at all. A _hero_. Whatever it is they call your kind, when you kill so many people that even _murderer_ falls short."

A terrible haze of red creeps into Saya's vision. Her lips feel like coiled springs, "...What did you call me?"

"Murderer. Savior. Monster." He winks broadly. "You shouldn't take exception. _Apr_ _è_ _s tout, une rose appel_ _é_ _e par un autre nom sentirais tout aussi bon_. A rose by any other name... Except it wasn't _roses_ that ended the war, no? Guts and grit. Swords and shit. That's what victors are made of. Toss in a massacre or two, like in Vietnam, and—"

That's as far as he gets before Saya erupts.

* * *

"Well," Dee says afterward. "That went well."

"It's a good thing we dragged her off him," David says. "If he's dead, it's over for Red Shield. The in-fighting will begin, and the organization will break into pieces."

"If Otonashi doesn't break _him_ to pieces first."

"Deidra, please."

They are clumped together on wicker chairs beneath the spreading branches of a tamarind tree. Night has fallen; stars salt the pitch-black sky. Yet the air still has a choking thickness to it. In the corner, an old-fashioned lamppost flickers, moths battering their furry bodies against the hot bulb.

Just watching them makes Saya's eyeballs itch. Her knuckles are still raw from where they collided with Télesphore's face.

She mutters, "I don't know what came over me."

Dee shrugs a shoulder. "I dunno. Righteous disgust, maybe?"

"Deidra," David sighs.

"Hey, I was halfway to popping him one myself!"

"That won't get us anywhere."

"Unless we twist his arm behind his back and make him sign our papers."

"It's against our Prime Directive."

"The Prime Directive says to harm _beasts_ but no _men_. I'm not sure that bloodsucker—" Dee swats idly at the mosquitoes buzzing in the air. "—counts as either."

"Without him, we are running out of options," Haji says.

As always, the ordinary words hold gravity in his mouth, like a prophecy. Something tightens in Saya's chest, and she turns away. August is sitting off-kilter on the wicker-chair next to her, head drooping and shoulders hunched. The poor thing seems sucker-punched in the whole body.

"Are you all right?" Saya asks.

"Yeah." August musters a wan smile. "What about you?"

"I'm sorry I blew up like that. It ruined your chances."

"I _had_ no chance. He'd already written me off."

"He may still change his mind," Saya says, a habit of stubbornness meeting hope.

"Maybe," August sighs. "Or maybe ...we should head back. Try to work over the others."

Dee frowns. "Do you think it'll do any good?"

"No. But it's time wasted trying to turn things around here. Unless…"

"What?"

August gives a headshake. "Nothing. Just something on my mind." In a different tone, "We'll renegotiate tomorrow. If it fails, we'll decamp."

"There are a few old associates of Joel's in New Delhi," David muses. "It's a long shot. But we could try to speak with them..."

Saya tries to focus on the conversation. But it feels like the heat is making her mind gluey. Words ooze in and out of her skull. She blinks, and blinks, and blinks again. The exhaustion is so strong it verges on nausea.

"...Already sent them over fifteen emails with no response..."

"...Old contact... a retired Naval Officer flying in from Monte Carlo..."

"...If all else fails, there's the nuclear option..."

"...Death sentence, you mean. I'd be branded a dictator in drag..."

"...If they're not going to listen to reason..."

A wave of seasickness roils in Saya's belly. The scenery lurches, its muted night-colors transposing into a blur of reds and whites, as if the air itself is a mass of coagulated blood. And from within that blood, a dark shape rises with a ribboning grace.

A snake, its eyes sky blue with slits of black pupil, its tongue a wingbeat flicker.

In Saya's vision, it unfurls from the congealed redness with a stylized grace, the kind glimpsed beneath the melody of a charmer's flute. Inching closer and closer toward her, in a seamless S-shape that is ever-shifting yet unending, its iridescent scales catching the starlight.

It lays its head, with a tender nuzzling, below her belly-button.

" _Careful, Saya_."

"...Saya..."

 _"Be very careful."_

"Saya?"

She jolts, mid-gasp. The blood is gone, and so is the snake. The moths make crazy shadows on the lampposts. David, Dee, August and Haji are all staring at her.

"You okay?" Dee asks. "You're seem awful spacey."

"Y-Yeah. I'm fine." She scrambles to her feet. "I'll be right back."

The rest-home has no proper bathroom. Just a screened outhouse with a tin roof, its cracked-plaster walls dark with mildew. The toilet is squat-style, with a cistern and a water jug for washing up. Saya hunches there, and she doesn't even realize she is going to vomit until the bitter stuff spews from her mouth.

Hiccuping, shivering, she rinses off in the primitive sink before splashing her face with tepid water.

 _God._

What _was_ that? Another hallucination, like the PTSD-riven ones in Okinawa? The symptom of stress and insomnia?

Or a warning of danger?

Outside, high-shouldered and shivery, she stands clutching the necklace with Diva's red stone. It is slick from her sweaty palms, and coppery with the fug of old blood. Yet its weight holds a comfort—a dark implacable _home_ -ness.

"Saya?"

She jerks. "Wh-what?"

Haji is there. Reading her like a walking EKG, as always: breath, heartbeat. It is reflex, she knows. A Chevalier's bodily attunement to his Queen. But in this moment, it becomes almost creepily intrusive.

"What? What's is it now?"

"Nothing. Just—are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"You seem ill."

"It's nothing." She shoves the stone under her collar. Wipes her damp palms on her thighs. "Just a headache."

Haji focuses on her with a renewed intensity. "Again?"

"It comes and goes."

"For days now, Saya." Quieter, "Perhaps we should return home."

"What?"

"There is nothing further for you to do here. Except drive yourself mad. It might be best to—"

"It might be _best_ if you stop telling me what to do." She keeps her voice flat, but there is anger simmering at the edges. "I mean— _God_. Don't you get tired of always hovering around me? Spying on me?"

He tilts his head, gazing at her in that unwavering, unnerving way of his. "It is hardly spying if I am concerned for your health."

"Well, your _concern_ is suffocating."

"Saya. Please. I am only—"

"No, I _mean_ it."

It's an effort to measure tone to words, to be firm and reasonable when she can feel her chest constrict with the familiar frustration spinning between them. Logically, she knows it's not his fault. The Chevalier in him always wants to chop the danger short—internal, external. And she's pregnant, under threat, unstable in her self, unsure in her role. All the ingredients to cook up a powerful brew of Haji's protective instincts.

She understands it. But she is tired of a baby-sitter tagging along after her everywhere. What will he do next? Wait outside the bathroom stalls when she pees? (He does that already). Stand beside her during meetings like a secret service officer? (He does that too). Guard her door like a watchdog while she sleeps? (Ditto).

A chill goes through Saya.

 _God_.

 _We're back to how we were in the war._

 _Worse._

Worse, because now their boundaries are undefined. He pushes, she pulls, and the tug-of-war threatens to tear every vestige of their intimacy apart.

"I am tired of this," she grits out. "Just because I'm—I'm the way I am, doesn't mean you get to invade my space. To _decree_ what I do or don't do. To contradict me, or doubt my choices. When I said we should be partners, Haji, I didn't say you should treat me like a _child._ "

Something flashes across his face—hurt, sorrow. But he is not deterred. "When _you_ spoke of partners, I also hoped you would consult me on certain matters."

"What are you talking about?"

" _This_." A gesture that sums her up with an economy of precision: her groggy eyes, the aftertaste of bile on her breath, the stone in her pocket. "Your wish for children. Your anxiety to rescue Red Shield. Your refusal to be swayed even if it goes against good sense."

"Whose good sense? _Yours_?"

He shakes his head. "Saya. I am worried for you. There is something weighing you down. But you refuse to share it. Worse, you seem convinced you can go full steam ahead. As if the war is ongoing. As Diva if still alive—"

" _This isn't about_ _Diva_."

"Isn't it?" His tone hangs flatly reproving but there is an undercurrent of anger beneath. "I think it is more about Diva than anyone else. What are you trying to prove, Saya? That you can live the life Diva lost? Be a fighter, and a mother, and a woman—not because you _want_ to but because it is the only way to atone for your sister's death?"

"How _dare_ you—!"

"You already carry her remains like a _mea culpa_. You clutch that necklace everytime we finish making love. Saya, tell me truly. Is it a family you want—with me? Or is it a way to somehow resurrect Diva? Rewrite her past, as if she was never dead in the first place—never an insane monster—never—"

" _Stop it!_ "

She doesn't realize she'd meant to slap him until his head lashes back to a sharp _crack_. Her palm stings where it struck his cheekbone.

Haji staggers, his hair a dark landslide across his half-hidden face. His eyes are hot and shocked.

For a moment, there is a twisted satisfaction in being able to crack him open, to dig free the emotion he is so adept at keeping concealed—not by effort but nature. Part of her is always entranced by that nature. But another part of her is growing resentful of it. Resentful of the way her own life strips her apart, layer by layer, until she is raw and bleeding, while Haji only seems stronger, steadier, saner. Resentful of being a contradictory mess, powerful and weak at the same time, her every choice the wrong one, her whole self an abnormality with no cure.

She'd expected the pregnancy to _fix_ that. That it hasn't feels like her own failure.

Then Haji touches the blood streaking his face. Suddenly her fury curdles into shame.

"Ha-Haji." She draws closer. "Oh God. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

Her Chevalier swipes a palm across his mouth as if to erase the words better left unsaid. "I should go."

"Haji— _please_. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just—"

"Who knows what you meant." He turns away from her. "Who knows what anything means to you, Saya."

He exits in a lomographic blur.

Tears scald her eyes. Pursuit is foremost— _utmost_ —in her mind. But she barely gets beyond ten feet before a retching spasm crumples her to the ground.

When she staggers back to the rest-house, jelly-legged and raw-throated, Haji is nowhere to be seen. Deidra and David are gone too. But she knows they are habitually early risers. They've both probably turned in for the night.

August is still in the courtyard. Not alone. Two young men from the house across the street are present. August's pale skin and sharp-cut taupe suit are a perfect inverse to their tawny skins and loose-flowing white _shalwar kameez_. The three of them are squatting in a circle, taking drags from a funky-looking cigarette whose contents Saya dares not sniff too closely.

" _Fuckin' 'ell_! _Fuckin' ell_!" the men are guffawing, taking turns to try out the English-accented expletive August has shared with them. August is trying out some colorful Urdu swearwords too.

Evidently, the degree from Oxbridge is paying off.

Bemused and bleary, Saya stares. The threesome glimpse her and wave, an invitation to join in. She shakes her head.

She's made enough catastrophic choices for one day.

* * *

Dawn breaks with an uneasy languor.

Beneath the milky shroud of mosquito netting, curled up in the middle of her cot, Saya watches the sunlight stream dizzyingly bright across the room. Haji had never joined her last night. Or come into the room at all: his cello case is still at the corner, the dust around his suitcase undisturbed.

Wincing, Saya rolls to her side. She can hear angry voices outside the rest-house: David, Deidra, August, Télesphore. Another round of negotiations—or is it insults?—is underway. She ought to get dressed and join them. But the room undulates vertiginously, and her temples throb. Morning-sickness, except it feels ten times worse.

 _You're dehydrated, that's all._

 _Pull yourself together._

If today's negotiations fall flat, they will have to fly out of Karachi. Think of potential recourses. Except their options are dwindling by the hour. Maybe Haji was right? Maybe it really is over for Red Shield? Maybe she should let it go, and return to Okinawa.

 _Return to what in Okinawa?_

 _Baby showers? Redecorating? Shopping?_

She tries not to think about it.

A jangle of shouts jerks her back into her body.

 _"_ _—_ _Not leaving with my fucking calligraphy_ _—_ _"_

 _"_ _—_ _It's not yours anymore, you sodding prick_ _—_ _"_

 _"_ _—_ _ne bouge pas d'un pouce!_ _If I have to shoot you through the head_ _—_ _"_

Hastily dressed, sword in hand, Saya races outside. August and Télesphore are squared off in the courtyard. August has a large newsprint-wrapped parcel tucked under one skinny arm. Télesphore eyes it with apoplectic rage, his face overheated to tomato-red in the morning humidity.

" _Ne me teste pas_ ," he growls. "I've wasted precious time and money to get my hands on that. You're not walking away with it."

"It's mine now," August says. "Bought and paid for. So you can _shove_ it!"

Dee and David are at the fringes, their body-language alert as if readied to draw their guns. Across them, Télesphore's guards mirror the pose. The air crackles with a lit matchstick of unspooling disaster.

"What's going on?" Saya asks.

David keeps his watchful eyes trained ahead. "August bought an artwork from the family next door. The one Télesphore's obsessed with."

"What? _How_?"

"I think there was hash involved," Dee says dryly. "August is taking the piece to a vault for safekeeping. Télesphore's not having it."

Glancing at Télesphore, Saya thinks _Not having it_ was an understatement. The former arms-dealer's left eye is still swollen shut from her punch yesterday. The right eye glares brimstone and bazookas at August.

"If you leave with that thing," he seethes. "It will be with _out_ your kneecaps."

August doesn't so much as flinch. The jittery smile and self-conscious manner have evaporated. In their place is a steeliness that makes Saya realize the artwork wasn't taken on whim at all—but as calculated challenge.

"Try it," August says. "Hopefully your men's aim is more accurate than your insights. Winners and losers. Isn't that what you're good at spotting? Care to tell which of us is which?"

" _Ferme ta gueule, sale vache_!"

"Oh. _I'm_ the cow?" August bares teeth, a parody of politeness. "Better a cow than _idiot_. Just what were you trying to prove with that tirade of yours yesterday? Insulting my team. Insulting my mentor. Insulting the Mission. Except your barbs kept missing the mark. Worse than that. They exposed your own underbelly. Mentioning the calligraphy every ten seconds. How much you want it. How you're going to get it. It's worth a shitload more than you've offered that family, isn't it? You're struggling as it is; a small-time arm's dealer like yourself is a dying breed in this era of digital warfare. Your cargo is stuck at port and you can't afford the air-fuel costs. But you'd consolidate a good many debts with this artwork. Right?"

" _J'ignore de quoi tu parlez_!"

"No, of course you don't. Not that it matters. It's mine now. Only an idiot chucks his hard-earned _balles_ down the toilet, _oui_?"

Télesphore's lips are twisted, swelling with rage. A vein pops on his perspiring temple. He seems split-seconds away from spontaneous combustion. Or worse: the signal to open fire.

Frowning, Saya steps forward. "August—"

August barely glances around at her. The youngster is absorbed in the moment. Absorbed—with a clear-eyed relish—in what Saya understands isn't a standoff but a choreographed negotiation. This has been in the works since yesterday.

"You. Are not. Taking. My artwork," Télesphore warns. "The family has promised it to _me_."

"They promised no such thing, you vulgarian. Certainly not for their family heirloom to be pawned for profit. You come swooping into a place you know nothing about. Try to negotiate with someone whose priorities you have no respect for. Then you have the gall to say you understand human nature." August's lip curls, " _Tu t'es montr_ _é_ _bien cr_ _é_ _tin_."

Télesphore's gives a tiny but audible whoosh of breath, like steam from a tea-kettle on the verge of spilling over. The man seems on the verge of spilling over himself—not rage but panic. His scent has changed: a sour rush of sweat that carries in the thick tropical air.

But Saya, discerning all the chemical changes with her senses, feels wary rather than reassured. A desperate foe can be an unpredictable one.

On cue, Télesphore raises a hand. The sudden volley of gunfire is devastating.

" _August_!"

Instinctively, Saya dives on top of August, shielding them both from the barrage. But the exchange of bullets is mysteriously one-sided. Peering through the smoke haze, she sees that the bodyguard's guns have clattered away. Behind her, David and Dee's weapons are drawn and extended at shoulder height, their identical blue eyes staring straight down the barrels. Both of which are aimed right at Télesphore.

Beneath Saya, August sighs, maddeningly equable, "That was _completely_ unnecessary."

Télesphore blinks. "Wh-wha—?"

With a gentle but pointed nudge, August straightens from under Saya's weight. Both eyes fixed on Télesphore, measuring him without mercy. "Shooting me wouldn't have accomplished much. Beyond damaging your precious artwork. You knew that. And yet you gave the signal, anyway. Tell me. Are you _stupid_ , or just _desperate_?"

Télesphore swallows, but stays wisely silent.

Idling over a scuffed coat-button, August continues. "Rhetorical question. You _are_ desperate. You have been, since the beginning. So why not skip the bullshit and agree to our terms?"

"You—you—"

"Just yes or no, please."

Bristling like a cornered boar, Télesphore raises his hand again. Reflexively, Saya steps abreast of August. But it isn't a signal for his men to renew their attack. He is ordering them to stand down.

"All right," he bites off. "Okay _. Vous marquez un point._ "

"Really?" August slinks out the Goldschmidt smile: a bland enigma. "What point is that?"

"Whatever _point_ you'd like it to be! Just tell me what I must do. So the business smooths itself out."

"What business, exactly?"

"Of Red Shield. Of backing you as Joel." He grits his teeth. " _Mon Dieu._ Come inside, and we'll talk it over."

"We can discuss matters peaceably right here."

"I think there's no reason to—"

"I don't much care what you do or don't think." August's smile widens. "There are, however, some documents I'd like you to sign. Now if you'd be so kind..."

* * *

The arrangements, once made with Télesphore's sponsorship, put the remainder of Red Shield in a tizzy.

Suddenly August can't set the cellphone down without it ringing on the table, in the car, in the briefcase, in coat pockets. Calls are pouring in from operatives throughout the organization: some wary, some congratulatory, some hostile. But whatever the board's reservations, the gears of succession are in motion: August will be formally accepted as the new Joel by the end of the month.

" _Shyeeet_ ," Dee laughs later that night, at the Sheraton in Karachi. "I've never walked out of a firefight without wasting all my ammo before. You had everything planned out from the start!"

"That's sounds so, em, Machiavellian," August demurs. "I only wanted to help."

"You wanted to make Télesphore _bawl_. Which you did. Three times over."

"I did. With the full—and terrifying—knowledge that it could've gone pear-shaped."

"It was touch and go," David agrees. "But impressive. Your Uncle Joel would've been proud."

August beams. In the bright chandeliers of the dining hall, Saya can glimpse the resemblance, all at once, to Joel: the piercing blueness of the dark eyes, the mild goodwill that hides beneath a mind racing at light-speed. It fills her with nostalgia, and bittersweet pride.

But much as she wants to enjoy their night of celebration, she is antsy. In the high air-conditioning, she shivers and fidgets, tension tugging at her muscles like a needle pulling thread.

They've packed up and vacated the rest-house _en masse_. But there is still no sign of Haji. She's speed-dialed him five times already. Each time, she's gotten his voicemail. The recording, flat and nearly toneless, unnerves her because she's never heard it before. He always answers her calls at the first ring.

She's left him a message anyway: _We're at the Sheraton. Flying out day after tomorrow_. The businesslike curtness of her own voice come from long practice. But inside her, a selfish scared little girl is wailing.

 _I'm sorry._

 _I'm so sorry for what I did._

 _Please don't go._

Shaking it off, she reaches for her drink. Alcohol isn't served at the hotel; they all have bubbling glasses of Coke. Yet somehow it is apropos; a little playful, a little ragtag, a little ironic. A group of misfits taking their victories where they can.

"To Joel," she says, lifting her glass in a toast. The others follow suit. "To the end of an era. But also to a fresh start. Thanks to smarts, hard work, and, um—"

"Hash," August finishes. "Loads of hash."

This gets grimacing grins. Their glasses clink together.

The Coke tastes almost dizzyingly bright on Saya's tongue. She doesn't swallow right away; just holds it behind her teeth. Her gorge has been spiking up and down the entire day; she's had little appetite, which she blames on the strain and heat.

If Haji were here, he'd notice right away, vigilant as always to her moods and maladies. He'd have gotten her tea with ginger, and a bowl of fresh-cut fruit, and a light broth to settle her stomach. Each gesture, so solicitous, resonating secretly with a Chiropteran's instincts. In another life, he'd have gotten her a jawful of wild deer the same way, dripping blood.

She thinks of Haji, and as she does, something prickles her spine. Deep cold and dark, a familiar aura.

 _Danger._

Frowning, Saya glances around. The dining-hall is crowded, but not immoderately so. A few American and British expats, a Chinese couple in the corner, plenty of bustling staff. But none of them are the source of the aura.

 _But then who_ _—_ _?_

"Where's Haji?" David asks her.

Saya jerks. "...What?"

Across them, August is on the phone again, formalizing travel plans with a Red Shield staffer. One hand cradles Joel's pocket-watch, thumbing the heirloom open with care. Dee is on her own phone, thumbs clicking rapidly, a little smile hovering on her lips. Texting Kai, Saya suspects, right under her father's nose, in the guise of breaking the good news.

"Where's Haji?" David repeats, his gaze a watchful scrutiny. "He hasn't reported in since last night."

Saya shrugs, forcing casualness into the gesture, "Reconnaissance-run."

"For twenty-four hours?"

"He might be fetching supplies."

"He would've conferred with me. Have you called him?"

"I've left him a message."

David absorbs this factoid—Haji, letting Saya's call go to the inbox—with a neutral stare. "You're not concerned?"

Saya's heart stumbles over itself in guilty reflex. Frowning into her glass, she takes a sip. "I don't keep him on leash, Mr. David."

 _Maybe I don't deserve to keep him at all._

* * *

Inside her room, nausea and nerves renew themselves.

Pacing the enclosed space, which is bland and impersonal as all the hotel rooms she's grown accustomed to in her transient life, Saya cries. The shortest possible cry—a few trickling tears and wet whispery sniffs. Her whole body feels divided: relief and anxiety, agitation and exhaustion. At this hour, there is nothing to distract her from the growing ache in her chest, and the tight spot between her shoulderblades

 _Haji would have called by now_.

Called, or at least texted. Not doing so marks the first time in his lengthy lifespan that he's left a muddle mid-solution. The only explanation is an emergency. That—or he is punishing her. Not consciously, but in a way that reminds her that she too must learn forbearance, and humility, two qualities she's always been sorely lacking in.

 _I'm sorry, Haji._

Honestly, she brought this on herself, didn't she? The more she goes over their fight, the more she burns with shame. Why had she done that? Lashed out at him?

This isn't the life she'd envisioned for herself, it's true. But being with Haji is always like coming home to a familiar sanctuary, to a small secret niche within which she fits perfectly, and into which the world perfectly fits. Why is does she always take him for granted? Especially now, when they should be knitted solidly together, anticipating the beginning of their children, a family, a future.

 _That's what I wanted all along._

 _Didn't I?_

Questions with no easy answers. Certainly no reassuring ones.

In bed, lapsing between dreams, Saya feels the whispery caress of air on her bare skin. The blanket covering her is lifted away. In the dappled waters between sleep and waking, she feels fingertips lightly tracing her spine. Then a touch of cool lips on her shoulder.

 _Haji?_

She tries to crack one eyelid. There is incipient blue light from the blinds at the window, but the room is too dark to see more than outlines. She vaguely discerns a tall figure looming over her.

 _It must be Haji._

She is too tired to sit up. Too muzzy to do more than murmur as he stretches into bed alongside her. They both are nude under the coverlet; Haji's skin is satiny against hers, and cooler than the sheets. He takes his place behind her without a sound. One heavy arm drapes across her breasts. The other crosses downwards, covering the triangle of her mons in a possessive palm. She is bleary, belly full and brain emptied. But glad too, that he is with her again.

Gently, she squeezes his forearm with her hand. His rasping whisper vibrates against her hair. "Sweet dreams, Saya."

It sounds like Haji's voice. But it grows stranger with each syllable, a trace of musicality where there should be only soothing monotone. She feels a thrumming exhale in his chest. It almost resembles a laugh.

Then there is a bright splotch of red behind her closed lids, followed by a searing pain. Seconds—hours?—later, she awakes to find sunlight streaking through the blinds. The sheets are tangled around her body; her pelvis is caught in the pincers of a tightening ache.

Wincing, Saya gets up on an elbow. "…Haji?"

No answer. The room is empty. No sign of Haji's clothes draped across the chair. Had he even come in last night? Or had she dreamt it all?

Disappointment is a misshapen spasm inside her. Dizzily, throbbing all over, she stumbles to the bathroom. Stands under the hot spray of the shower, hoping to blot out thought and sensation.

Hopefully when Haji gets back, she can show him how much he means to her. Prove to him, with her whole body, what she fails to convey in words.

 _Hopefully_ , she thinks, stroking her belly.

It is only when she's drying off does she glimpse the clot of blood running down her thighs.

Then comes the shockwave of cramps that drops her to the floor.

* * *

 _The next few chapters are cray-cray. And not necessarily in a fun way._

 _August and Télesphore are (loosely) based off an intern and associate at a firm I worked at. Needless to say, they pissed each off like oil on water. On the intern's last day, ze gave said associate a chewing out the likes of which I have never witnessed before, or since. Wherever the intern is now, I'm sure ze is proudly kicking ass and taking names._

 _Translations to_ _Télesphore's ranting can be found on my tumblr, under the Frenchie tag._

 _Again, I look forward to y'all's thoughts on this installment. Review, pretty please!_


	32. Venus

_Early-ish update! We've hit Act II's home stretch - only one more chapter to go! I'll leap straight into Ch: 1 of Act III once that's done, and then take a month-long hiatus, since Act III is the real migraine where plot coherence is concerned 8')_

 _As always, your reviews are my lifeline, and inspire me to keep writing even on the dreariest days. Keep those critiques and comments coming, guys! I read each one very carefully, and try my best to gently tweak the narrative to your preferences._

 _Speaking of-_

 _I apologize in advance, as this chapter is the mother of all trainwrecks. While I've tried to temper the angst where possible, there's no denying the subject matter is pretty grim (of course, I'd argue it's been grim from the get-go, centered as it is on PTSD, possession, and dysfunctional coping mechanisms). However, now it's overlapping with a lot of RL stuff that readers may have experienced in person. That makes me both cautious and solemn going forward, because you want to treat the material with respect, but also not forget you're writing about miscarriage and trauma in a_ vampire anime fanfic _, for god's sake. It's a delicate balance between getting the complexity of characterization down, and not, er, narming it up like the Zootopia abortion comic._

 _If y'all aren't familiar with the latter - bless you. May the gods preserve your innocence._

 _Heavy TW for miscarriage. Begins after the line "On the bright tiles, in the pulsing dark of her body, Saya dreams."_

 _I'm highly curious to know y'all's thoughts on this chapter. Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Karachi at night is a bright conch-shell, whorling luminously outward from its central hub. Ambient sounds everywhere: cars, bikes, buses, rickshaws. Humidity a migraine: the air pressing heavily against the temples.

Tórir and his group are hunched around a pile of surveillance photos. Their surface is glossed in cheap gold by the forty-watt bulb of the outdoor food stall. Patrons are hunkered down on wobbly plastic chairs all around them, shoveling confetti-colored _biryani_ into their mouths. Tórir's nostrils are filled with the aroma of spiced chicken.

This is hardly the most upscale place. But it is not the crummiest, either. It is also close enough to the Sheraton Plaza that a white foreigner sightseeing at night isn't unusual.

Especially if he has a small armed entourage.

The four men in his company are a mixed bunch. Two are PMCs with past affiliations to Blackwater/Constellis Holdings. The other two are special-forces soldiers with a range of field experience: snipers, tactical operations experts, getaway drivers. Their nationalities are mixed: Ghanan, Mexican, Columbian, Somalian.

IBM-UAWA, like any private corporation, recruits globally—and cuts corners where it can. These men, elite killers of fearsome reputation, are payrolled much lower than their US military counterparts.

Tórir doesn't care. What matters to him is that they do their jobs.

Under each man's command are at least a half-dozen soldiers. Anonymous, dependable, disposable. Altogether they compose a sizable squad within which to disseminate tasks of recon, logistics, firearms, and forward observation.

All of which will be necessary for the upcoming mission.

"They have checked into the Sheraton." Tórir points at a photograph taken from a five-hundred-millimeter lens. "I did a personal sweep indoors. Four of them were in the dining hall."

"We're missing a fifth," says the Ghanan. "The one you told us to be wary of."

Tórir nods. "The 'Chevalier.' Haji."

"You think he's made us out?" the Somalian asks. "He has not been in our sightlines for forty-eight hours. Could be he's lying low. Waiting to pounce the moment we move in."

"Do not concern yourself with him. He is being kept busy." Tórir flicks a finger at the photos. "However, in his absence, we should not launch our attack at the Sheraton."

"Why not?" the Columbian argues. "This August kid's security detail is minimal. An old man and a woman. It'd be easy to infiltrate the hotel, grab him out of his room, and blow their brains out without suspicion."

Tórir shakes his head. "You would also rouse the _Queen's_ suspicion."

"Who?" Chortling, the Somalian plucks out a snapshot of Saya. "This skinny little thing?"

"She is Red Shield's secret weapon. Deadlier than she looks."

"She's our prime target, right?" the Mexican prompts. "You want her alive and functioning?"

"Fully functioning." Tórir glances around the table at each man. "But subduing her requires finesse. She's killed plenty of men—more than all of you combined. Do not underestimate her. Our best way to get to her is through the element of surprise."

"What d'you suggest?" asks the Columbian.

"It has already been handled."

"Eh?"

Tórir idly rotates his head, cracking the joints in his neck. A slow smile breaks across his face.

This operation has been six weeks in the making. Sanctioned by IBM-UAWA with great deal of arm-twisting—and all the more vital because of it.

An opportunity to swoop in and abduct Red Shield's latest head-honcho. To use him as ransom for Saya. Not a prolonged negotiation but a flashbang operation—seize one target, then leave with the other. Each of them in Tórir's team carries a syringe of tranquilizers powerful enough to dose a herd of stallion. Tórir has allowed them to test it on his own body to gauge its effectiveness.

One shot, and Saya will be out-of-commission for hours.

 _Vital hours to get her back to headquarters._

And with her safely incapacitated, it will be that much easier to go after her nieces.

Excitement is a pressurized pulse beneath Tórir's skin. Soon, he will have his broodmare. With her, he will replicate his hottest memories of the Red Queen. And with her nieces, he will cut swathes of blood through entire nations. All he needs is patience, and a well-cohered plan.

 _There is more than one way to skin a cat._

Rising, he begins to collect the surveillance photos. "Give it a few more hours. Their group—Saya and August included—will move in a little while. We will have our opening at that point."

"Move?" asks the Ghanan. "To where?"

"A hospital."

Then men exchange glances around the table.

The Columbian grunts, "Why would they go there?"

"Because I paid Saya a short visit, while she slept." Tórir looks down at their bewildered faces, and his smile widens. "Not enough to rouse alarm. But enough to make my presence known… to her condition."

"'Condition?'" the Somalian furrows a brow. "What're you rabbiting about?"

"Saya was pregnant, when I left her." Tórir exhales a sibilant laugh. "She will not be when I see her next."

* * *

On the bright tiles, in the pulsing dark of her body, Saya dreams.

A dream indistinguishable from fever. So many faces—long dead—are with her. In the bathroom, in her skull. Joel and George. Elizaveta and Clara. Riku, small hand caressing her hair in a childish approximation of comfort. Amshel, nudging her cruelly with the toe of his shoe. Solomon, his long eyelashes gummed wetly with tears. Diva, hanging over Saya like a glowing moon.

Light from the bathroom's bulb catches the electrical mass of her sister's dark hair. It skims Saya's face, bestowing scent and blessing, a storm with the promise of rain. Her eyes are half-lidded, the pure blue where sky meets sea, where the world recedes into a color that seems the origin of dreams themselves.

 _Not yet, Saya,_ she says.

Saya wants to speak. But she is sunk down in her bones, throbbing to a current that spikes with each breath. Sweating and shivering and spasming, while blood slithers between her legs. There is already an opaque moat on the tiles. The smell is so visceral: copper, salt, the acrid mess of life.

Life and death, her body rejecting what she'd cherished as an abomination.

She is crying, from the pain—but also the failure. Failure to hold on to what she loves. To recompense for the suffering of her sister. To engender something beyond misery.

She cries, and cramps, and bleeds. Her empty stomach heaves, but there is nothing in there. She has already thrown up twice, a spew of boiling acid down her robe. With each breath, she is deflating, shrinking into a ball, no bigger than an embryo itself: the next spasm, pouring more blood and slickness, nearly knocks her out cold.

 _Not yet, Saya_ , Diva whispers again.

"What else can I do?" Saya sobs, barely getting the words out. "What else is left?"

 _Life. Your life. The same as mine._

"What _life_? You're dead. I killed you. I should be dead too!"

 _Sssh._

 _That's not the way to repay me._

"What then? _What_?"

 _Just like I said._

 _A pound of flesh. A drop of blood._

"…blood…?"

"Yours and mine. Ours." A hand lays itself on Saya's skull. "So we can finally settle the score."

Confusion churns through Saya's skull. She squeezes her eyes shut. In her groin, the hurt is radioactive. Her years on the battlefield are nothing to this. No blow, no bite, no broken bone comes close. Her very essence vibrates to the song of agony. A song almost like Diva's—but inside her, building on and on, a shrill pain that races along strung nerves and sharp knots of muscle and re-concentrates heavily in her belly.

When the next spasm comes, rage opens her lungs.

She _screams_.

A moment later—surely a moment?—she opens her eyes. The rims are sore and crusted with tears. Thighs stuck together, fluid seeping thinly in time with her heartbeat. It must still be the middle of the day. Except there is moonlight spangling from the bathroom's frosted-glass window. The muted cacophony of traffic outside the hotel: cars, motorcycles, rickshaws. A world in motion, no still-point, people going about their lives.

While she lays on the floor, in a carnage of blood.

Somewhere far off, a knocking. She doesn't know when it started. Her sense of time has leached away. But the knocking has been going on a while: her temples pound to the noise, a fist-sized headache blossoming in her brainstem.

"Go away," she says, but it is a croak.

The knocking gets louder. She hears the disorder of voices. English. Urdu. The tones of strangers overlapping with those of friends. There is the _beep_ of a keycard, and the door of her room opening. She hears the hotel manager step inside.

"Miss Otonashi?"

"Go away!" she tries again, dry-throated but louder. "I'm fine!"

"Saya?" David this time. "Saya, what's going on?"

"Nothing! I'm okay!"

She tries to get up. But her legs are two wodges of wet tissue. She stumbles on the slimy tiles. It is too much effort to move. To breathe. Too much, everything _too much_.

"Saya?" The bathroom doorknob rattles. David's sharp voice is edged in concern. "Saya, come out _now_."

"Please go away, Mr. David. I'm fine!"

She can't bear for him to see her like this. Not when her guts are skewered, her body in the grip of cold paralysis. The bleeding is weak, but also a stream whose flow will not be stopped. All the marks of an internal trauma that has yet to subside.

"Saya, open the door."

"No. Please. No."

Moonlight streams in, gathering brightness, picking up the dust-motes in the air. The bathroom's imperfect silence has an inertia, pouring inside her, so there is nothing alive but her breaths rising from the well of her aching body. Then quite suddenly she realizes how still everything has become. Nothing but her feeble pulse and the floating dust.

"Saya."

The new voice makes her jerk. A familiar undertow of quiet. _Haji_.

"Saya, let me in."

She flails weakly. _No no no no._ The bathroom—shower-stall, sink, toilet—closes in on her. One window, too narrow to leap out of. She has no escape. She can't bear to face Haji. She's failed too badly this time, ruined everything, rejected his warnings, rejected the babies she'd hoped would wipe everything else away, make him believe in her love, her commitment to life.

"I didn't mean for it to happen! It wouldn't stop! I couldn't stop it!"

"Saya, what are you saying? Please let me in."

"Haji. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Saya—"

There is muted movement behind the door. An exchange of fierce whispers: _—Back. Just stay back._ Followed by the _crack_ of the door kicked at the knob. Her heart tumbles; her stomach drops. The sound may as well be her own body cracking at the seams, collapsing on itself in shame.

Then the door gapes open, and there is Haji, his elegant spareness a shock in the dank bathroom, its animal stench of sickness.

Their gazes meet. His eyes go wide. " _Saya_!"

Behind him, David and Dee push inside. David's face spasms in alarm. Dee, one hand on the doorknob, reads the room like a crime-scene. Comprehension, then chagrin. "Jesus God."

"What's happening to her?" David asks.

"It's a miscarriage."

The single word from Dee, metallic at the edges, clangs off her brain. Saya shies from it. Such a stupidly inadequate word. It has nothing to do with the blood saturating her body, or the cramps that rise and fall in sick counterpoint to her irregular pulse.

She wants to curl up, sobbing, and die.

Then Haji steps into the ring of blood. Kneeling, and sliding his arms under her. He gathers her up, not like a child, but like wreckage. His hands are strong but the embrace is shaky. His breath hisses in his chest. His eyes, flickering up and down the length of her, seem short-circuited.

 _Shock_ , she thinks. _He's in shock._

In shock, or in the grip of sympathetic reflex. The connection between Queen and Chevalier that is an eternal circular loop, never static, never waning. Untranslated understanding.

Except even that wasn't enough to keep their babies.

"Her pulse is too weak," Haji whispers.

"We need to transfer her to a hospital," David says. "Get her stabilized—until Julia flies in."

"I'll call an ambulance," Dee says. "Maybe we can get a private room arranged."

"Don't. _Please_." It bursts from Saya on a cry. "It all bled out. It's over."

The horror of her own words redoubles the loss. She starts to sob.

Than Dee says, "It's not over."

"What?"

Dee's frown is fierce. "Unless I've fallen off the ass-end of the universe—which it feels like I have—a Chiropteran Queen always has twins. Here's something they don't tell you about twins. Even if you miscarry one—"

" _Stop saying that word_! _For God's sake stop saying it_!"

Dee is undeterred. "Even if she miscarries one, she doesn't always lose the other right off."

"What are you saying?" Haji asks, warily soft.

"I'm saying there's a chance to nip this in the bud. Come on. Get her up. If we hurry, there might still be time..."

Saya tries to talk. Her mouth tastes of the sourness of vomit. Tongue thick and useless, unable to string words together. There's no need to say anything. A vertiginous displacement has crept in, as if she is floating off to nowhere. Tiny as a dustmote yet heavy as stone.

Only Haji's arms keep her anchored. Haji, and the dark alchemy of Dee's words, transforming the profane into the sacred.

 _There might still be time..._

* * *

 _"The Birth of Venus."_

Saya aims a finger at the reprint on the expensive folio.

She and Haji are in the glassed-in library that overlooks the gardens, all sunlight and artfully-arranged antiques. (By 2037, it will be converted into an indoor jacuzzi). Joel seldom permits them in here. His priceless _object d'art_ are everywhere: burnished-wood statuettes and gold-rimmed ceramics and Oriental-lacquered showpieces worthy of _The Mikado_.

But today, Joel is away on business to Paris. Leaving Saya and Haji to trespass, unafraid and unrepentant.

Saya, anyhow.

Haji keeps apart, anxiety in his gangly sixteen-year-old outline. _"Saya. We shouldn't stay long."_

 _"Will you stop whining?"_

Saya is on her hands and knees in front of a bookcase, tracing the spines. She has finished everything the downstairs library has to offer—philosophical tracts, penny-dreadful thrillers, classic anthologies. Now she is on the prowl for juicier fare. She'd overheard the chambermaids gossiping about _histoire d'horreur_ in the shelves. She wants to confirm it for herself. She is no novice: tomes such as Shelley's _Frankenstein_ have barely stirred a shiver. What she dearly hopes is that the library disgorges works by Mary Wollstonecraft, or Harriet Martineau. They must've written something _truly_ scandalous for Amshel to dub them homewreckers and harridans.

 _"Harridans?"_ Haji asked. _"Really?"_

 _"Mm-hmm. He said their writings would make a 'febrile mess of the female mind'."_

 _"Surely not yours?"_

It is a gentle tease. His eyes linger on her profile in the late afternoon sunlight: the furrowed brows and lowered eyelashes in a study of fierce concentration.

It is an expression he's well-versed with. It always appears right before catastrophe.

" _His_ , _more like_ ," mutters Saya, the frilled rump of her dress in the air as she eyeballs the collection _. "Joel says it's because his mother was a bluestocking who never paid him attention as a boy. So he's angry at any lady with a pen."_

 _"Yet ladies with pens are what you seek."_

 _"If I find any,"_ Saya mutters, as she pulls a folio of handmade foxed leather from the bookcase. It slides smoothly open in her lap, parted down the middle by a tasseled velvet bookmark in blue. " _Oh_!"

Curious, Haji peers over her head. He expects to glimpse blocks of text (English, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin—he and Saya are fluent in all five). Instead he sees drawings in colorful ink. They are exquisitely detailed, and very beautiful. The first is done in a Botticelli style: a nude woman with half-moon eyes and flowing honey-colored locks, posing with demure lassitude on the pastry-pleats of a seashell.

" _The Birth of Venus,"_ Saya says. With a fingertip, she traces the flowing lines of the figure. _"A replica of the original painting."_

 _"It is good,"_ Haji concedes. " _But hardly scandala—Ah."_

Saya has turned the page. There is only one drawing per leaf: the back of each sheet is lined in embroidered rag to prevent seepage. The second paper shows the same Venus. But she has abandoned her maidenly pose. One hand no longer starfishes across her breast, but cups it. The other hand lifts from its figleaf at her mons to expose the arrowhead of her pubic hair. Her head is still cocked to one side. But a look of defiance replaces the faraway gaze.

 _"What on earth...?"_ Saya flips the page.

On the next, Venus reclines on her shell, with her legs parted, one knee up. One palm caresses her breasts. The other is between her thighs, spreading her pinkish parts open. Her eyes are a half-mooning delirium now, her mouth open in a swoon.

Saya's and Haji's own mouths hang disbelievingly ajar.

They've seen dirty pictures before. Sex, then and in the future, is a pervasive theme in art and literature. But there is always an element of satire to those works. Body proportions exaggerated; genitals caricatured or blurred out.

Not like this.

These pictures are intimate rather than voyeuristic. They illustrate all of Venus in loving detail. The soft scrim of hair; the darkish folds of inner labia; the pink pearl of clitoris. It seems less pornography than a paean to her whole self.

Years later, Haji will wonder why the sight seemed almost …deviant. He'll rationalize it as framing. After years of the female body framed by the male gaze—in art, in poetry, in prose—its exposure as another _object d'art_ was quotidian. So the sight of it now, by itself and for itself, felt weirdly transgressive.

And thrilling.

Decades later, as lovers, he'll ask Saya to recreate the pose to her fancy—and to forget he's in the room. She'll acquiesce, shyly, then with abandon, and it will be a quiet revelation for him. Saya-under-his-watch. Saya-by-herself. The differences of each. The way she inhabits her skin more fully. The way she owns her own space. A culmination that is wildly arousing—in part because he is neither the subject nor the object of her attention.

Because _she_ is so whole.

(He'll feel the same way about her pregnancy.)

With trembling fingers, Saya stirs the folio's pages. In each one, Venus grows more frenzied. From stroking between her thighs to corkscrewing two small tapered fingers inside. From holding the reader's gaze with her half-moon eyes to disconnecting utterly, lost in her own bliss.

For Haji, it is all indefinably discomfiting. His instinct is to turn tail and flee. Propriety _dictates_ it.

Saya, meanwhile, is in a peculiar, intense state, as if she's crossed past shock to whatever sits directly beyond. Kneeling on the carpet, the fragile old folio in her lap and her head bent towards its ivory sheets, a strand of dark hair stirring with her breaths, she seems almost entranced.

From the tall windows, sunlight glitters. It seems to soften the energy in the air: a stirring, a _blossoming_.

They are very close together, Haji realizes. No rarity there: since childhood, they've been inseparable, practically living in each other's pockets. _Etre comme cul et chemise,_ as Amshel sometimes sneers.

This is different. Her lovely profile is inches from his lips. The light falls through the windows and catches at the dusting of fine hairs on her cheek. It reminds him of peach-fuzz. Her scent is the same, a sweetish whiff with fruity and floral undertones. The same scent she'd worn when she'd first hugged him as a child, her body-warmth seeping into him through the expensive fabric of her clothes.

It had felt like a balm then. Now it is a brushfire, her closeness electric, sparks seeming to pop in the space between them.

Then Saya turns her head. Their eyes lock, and Haji sees different things. The shared humor of the moment. A childish sense of disbelief. But also something hidden, secret, uncertain. Like she wants to reach for Haji's hand but doesn't quite dare

Then she scowls and lobs the folio at his head.

 _"Ow!"_

 _"Dépraver!"_

 _"What—what did I do?"_ He snatches the folio out of the air. _"You are the one who found it!"_

 _"That's no excuse to go breathing down my neck!"_

 _"I wasn't—"_ He ducks to avoid her swat. _"You were staring as much as I was."_

Saya sweeps to her feet. Her eyes are burning-dark and there are high spots of color on her cheekbones. A strange heat courses through the sunlit room. It is like an unblocking of channels, two magnets tangled in opposite polarities.

 _"You were supposed to help me look!"_ Saya shouts.

 _"I was!"_

 _"No you weren't! You were—you were—"_ She balls her fists, struggles for words, fails to find them. " _Pig_!"

 _"Saya—"_

She flings another book at him. Haji ducks.

Her temper-tantrum bewilders him. This is hardly the first time they've perused a nude figure together: solemn, sophisticated appraisals of Greek nymph-statues in the three-dimensional world, or exchanging jokes and dirty limericks in the manner of schoolchildren, the act itself reduced to either epithet or abstraction.

Epithets and abstractions were about all Haji could tolerate. At least in those days. It's not that he wasn't attracted to women. He was. And to Saya: inordinately, indelibly. But what he knew about sex as a child was brutal and painful and disgusting. He would be happy never to go near it for the rest of his life. Happier to spare Saya the worst of it.

Saya, who is stubborn, naughty, impulsive, rebellious. But who is, inherently, the most innocent person he knows.

When he was newly brought to the Zoo, Joel told him, in blunt terms, what was expected of him. He'd hinted at a sizable reward if Haji approached it the right way: a ring, a duchess's dowry, a standing in high society. Barely a year afterward, Saya had confided to him, her little hands an anxious wringing, how afraid she was of married life. Wedding night pains. Childbirth pains. Pains of limited agency or options.

He'd sworn there and then to spare her that too.

Now, she glowers. And Haji can't fathom the transmutations her presence wreaks inside his body with nothing but her _eyes_.

He can't think of what to say, either, but he reads it in her face. In her gaze, mirroring his own discomfiture strangely back at him. The relation of his body to hers. Space. Molecules in the air between them.

 _I am a woman,_ her eyes say. _You are a man._

The knowledge leaves her silent and stunned and dismayed.

 _"Saya…"_

Suddenly Haji has the urge to fold her up in an embrace. Yet what was effortlessly simple a moment ago seems all at once fraught with subtext.

(He'll feel the same way about her pregnancy.)

Then she snarls a litany of swearwords—each more unladylike than the last—before shoving past him and out the room.

 _"Saya, wait!"_

Helplessly, Haji takes off after her.

* * *

There is framed print on the wall beside Haji.

Botticelli's _Venus_ —not nude, but in a diaphanous gown. Haji zones out in the hospital corridor, cataloging its colors, comparing it to the optical replica from his memory. The longer he stares, the more brightness the print amasses, superseding the present. Honey-flowing hair. Almond-shaped eyes. A mouth touched by either mischief or melancholy. Her gown is the color of old blood.

Blood like on Haji's hands. His nails are darkly-rimmed with it; it has dried into scales on his fingers, like a reptile's.

The blood of a Queen, and her daughters.

 _Our daughters._

At his shoulder, David asks, "Where the hell have you been?"

The hospital surges around him: nurses with clipboards; orderlies with supplies; doctors chatting with families. Nothing like the frenzy of the ER or the somber silence of the operating rooms. The maternity ward is almost musical: peals of laughter from mothers, coos and cries of babies, murmurs of fathers with faces slack from wheeling between stress and smiles. Few pay any mind to Haji, Dee, David and August, huddled in the waiting area.

Their emergency is invisible.

 _Emergency—or tragedy?_

Haji's jaw clenches against incipient emotion. "I planned to report back yesterday."

"What kept you?"

"We were being followed."

"Followed?" Dee plucks an unlit cigarette from her mouth. "Since when?"

"Last night. I made the tail after your group had left Télesphore's rest-house."

Two large men had driven after Red Shield's truck, and in the same direction. At first, Haji had taken them as henchmen of Télesphore's, intent on payback. But the men didn't resemble the ill-trained guards at the arms-dealer's place. There was a readiness about them; a menace downplayed yet palpable. They felt vaguely militarized, though he could not pinpoint their country of origin.

The entire night, they'd circled the Sheraton Plaza, darting in and out of Haji's sightlines. When he'd last seen them, they were at a food-stall near the hotel—an innocuous position with a clear view of the entrance.

"Two males," he says. "Both foreign. They were watching the Sheraton."

"They could've been guests," David suggests.

Haji shakes his head. "They were too incongruous." Despite the influx of foreigners in the hotel district, few others set off his alarms. Most were either too old, or out-of-shape, or with children. Whereas those two had kept to themselves, tracking the periphery with a focus that belied their casualness. And to complicate matters— "I do not think they were working alone."

Dee and David's expressions don't alter. But their blue eyes narrow with grim synchronicity.

"You think there's an attack planned?" Dee says.

Haji nods.

"But who would they be after?" David asks. "Saya? Or…."

As one, they glance toward August.

Their new Chief sits crosslegged on the bench. Pink hair a-tangle, face wan under a spray of freckles, the rest of—his? her? their?—lanky body a jittery twist. Haji spots the candies in August's half-zipped bag, and shakes his head. _Barely a child._ But the fact that August has refused to budge, despite David's repeated requests to return to the hotel, bodes well where leadership is concerned.

Like the previous Joel, August clearly has a strong moral center and a heart for loyalty.

Frowning, August pulls a strip of green licorice from the bag. "What's wrong?"

David purses his lips. "I think it's best we reconnoiter at the hotel, Chief. I'll make arrangements for you to fly out to Paris."

August gives a stubborn headshake. "I can't leave _now_."

"Chief, sorry, but—"

" _No_." The dark blue eyes don't waver. "Not until I see Otonashi."

Dee grimaces self-consciously. "That may be a while."

The words hang uneasily in the air.

Haji closes his eyes and eases his shoulders into steadiness. But inside, there is a cold dark trickle through his bones. His eyes return to the print of Venus. The red of her gown. The way it clings to her legs. He thinks of _Saya's_ legs, the blood pouring between them. Not the rich redness of arterial blood, a Chiropteran's life source. This was clotted, blackish, strange-textured.

 _Wrong._

For a moment the smell is so visceral Haji tastes bile. He swallows, keeping still even as instinct compels him to _move_. Find Saya, behind those stupid hospital doors. They've already jetted in Julia to stabilize her. Her family have been alerted, too. Kai, Yumi and Yuri are on the quickest flight to get here.

 _What will they find?_

Saya as she _should_ be: rosy, smiling, safe. Or Saya as Haji last saw her: a bloodbath of the whole body.

Without opening his eyes, Haji reaches with his mind's fingers toward her. Instantly he feels it. Absence. The foul, coagulated absence of the unthinkable.

 _No._

His head jerks toward the swinging doors. Why isn't he with her? Why hadn't he been, from the start? In the war, if she was in danger, he'd always reached her at record speed. Why, now of all times, is he _failing_?

Memory invades like a recurring nightmare. That blasted night in Télesphore's safe-house, during that thrice-damned devil of a fight, where they both lost control in different ways. She'd lashed out, and he'd walked out. Leaving her alone, and in danger.

He'd left her. Right when she'd needed him most, he'd left her.

 _How could I have been so foolish?_ Haji seethes. _How could I have let my guard down?_

One hundred and fifty-four years. That's how long he's kept his guard up. Watching over her. Fighting for her. Holding his silence and keeping his peace. A nightmarishly long time for a human. But he's long stopped being human. He's never needed to sleep with one eye open for fear that disaster will strike.

He's well-practiced at _living_ disaster.

This is different. A battle none of his vigilance has prepared him for. Its ordinariness makes it _worse_. How many women miscarry? Every hour, every day?

 _How many die from it?_

He is halfway to the doors when David blocks him off.

"Haji—hold it."

"Move aside, David."

"Whatever you're thinking, this isn't the time."

"Isn't it?"

Haji's voice is emptied of emotion. Inside, he curses that physiological flatline—his best asset in battles, a default-mode he can't shake. Saya has been known to swing blows when angry. But Haji has never once had that luxury. He can't remember the last time he'd cut loose until everything devolved into a field of carnage and cornered-prey. As if, over the years, his anger became unnatural, another non-essentiality in his streamlined life.

Anger is what this situation _warrants_. So much of Saya's blood has been spilled.

He is ready to spill more.

For her …and his daughters.

Strange. After a lifetime of self-preservation, the reality suddenly takes precedence over everything else. An unlooked-for risk whose loss will absolutely gut him. Unthought before, the children— _his_ —amass a shocking realness. He feels for them as for Saya. Not as symbols or souvenirs, not as superficial proof of his and Saya's connection… but as a focal-point into which his entire self is funneled.

 _My daughters._

 _Gone._

Rage clouds the clearness of Haji's mind. He takes a step forward; David blocks him. For a moment, both men engage in a tense standoff. From the corner of his eye, Haji sees Dee's itchy trigger-fingers hover near her gun.

 _For fuck's sake,_ her eyes warn. _Don't make things worse._

Worse or better—Haji will never know. The doors swing open, and Julia steps in. Her weary face is specked with blood; the whiteness of her coat is smeared with it. A professional distance is settled into her eyes. But the corners of her mouth droop—and Haji knows.

He knows, and his jaw muscles seize up. Beside him, David asks, "…Dead?"

She nods.

"Otonashi?" Dee breathes, "Or the babies?"

"The babies." Julia meets Haji's eyes with reluctance. "Both of them. She passed the first clot last night. The second fetus still had a heartbeat. But it stopped shortly after the first one's sac fell away. She's still in a great deal of pain."

"Is it normal?" August asks. "All that bleeding? Is it a Chiropteran thing or a uterus-haver thing?"

Julia's lips twitch at the _uterus-haver._ But her eyes are somber. "Bleeding varies from woman to woman. But you're right. It's not normal."

Haji manages to pull words from the raw space inside him. "What is wrong with her?"

"She's undergoing a heavy spontaneous abortion. It resembles the Bruce Effect."

"The what?" David asks.

Julia takes her glasses off. "It's something we've observed in other mammals. Chiefly rodents and primates. It's when the presence of a hostile male causes the female to physiologically terminate her pregnancy."

"…The hell?" Dee is bewildered. "Why would she do that?"

"It's caused by a pheromone. Generally, females recognize chemosignals of the males they've mated with. But when a new one enters the scene, the female aborts her young. It's speculated that this makes her more readily available for mating with the new male. It's also saves her children from infanticide—which is all-but-guaranteed if she carries them to term."

David asks, "So why is it happening to Saya?"

Julia's expression attests that she isn't quite certain. "It's possible… her body is using an adaptive tactic. There may be another compatible Chevalier with whom she can have healthier offspring." She casts Haji an almost apologetic look. "It could explain why Diva never paid interest in you after... what occurred with Riku. Once pregnant, she'd have no cause to endanger her children. It might also be why she tried making Kai a Chevalier. More manpower for her protection. A Queen's own Chevaliers, after all, pose no pheromonal threat to her pregnancy."

"But where did another Chevalier come from?" Dee frowns. "Do you think it's—"

Haji doesn't wait to hear the rest. He slams past the doors, ignoring their shouts, and races down the corridor.

The machinery of his mind has shorted out to one thought:

 _Saya_.

* * *

She awakens with a dry mouth and an ache in her groin: a swollen fiery furor.

Splinters of fire dance across her eyes. She blinks, disoriented. The splinters soften into streaks of rust-colored light, falling from a lamp to touch her face. Her body feels broken, as if it's been smashed to pulp beneath the skin. Head one enormous blood vessel, ready to burst and spill red across the pillow. Unreal.

What a crazy dream. The whole thing—she keeps her eyes closed to cling to its psychic dregs. Sipping celebratory cokes at the Sheraton Plaza. Haji sliding cool and nude into her bed. The debacle in the bathroom: all agony and hemorrhage. The giddy vision of Diva's smile. Her voice.

 _Not yet, Saya._

Crazy.

That's when she feels it. Her belly, deflated to nothing but a mouthful of stale air inside. The padding between her legs, moist, thick, hot. She doesn't want to remember, but the memory is a fist rocketing to collide with her skull. _Wham_. Bone-deep misery.

No dream at all.

 _Oh God._

Shock turns to tears. And tears to sobs. She tries to stifle them, lip caught between her teeth. Tries to keep her body very still, absorbing nothing but the cool whiteness of the hospital room, its antiseptic tangs and the slow _Ssssh_ of the air conditioning.

Then the door swings open. She hears the _vrrrnk vrrrnk_ of stylish high-heels on the tiles. And a voice of awful incongruous perkiness.

" _What can be avoided/Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods_?"

Saya jerks, almost falling off the bed. Despite the good cheer in the newcomer's voice, a dump of adrenalized fight-or-flight takes her gut. _Chiropteran_ , say her instincts. The knowledge feels as life-threatening as a blade to jugular.

Except it is a familiar Chiropteran.

Nathan.

" _When beggars die, there are no comets seen!"_ he says. _"The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princesses_!"

Saya yanks the sheet up around her body. "God—what are you doing here? _Get out_!"

Nathan ignores her. He is dressed in an ivory kaftan with heavy gold embroidery on the collar; his eyes are lined in smoky kohl. The effect is both surreal and surreally pretty.

From her bedside he snatches up the medical chart, flipping its pages. "Hmm. _Hmm_. Let's take a looksie. The D & C went well. Anesthesia's worn off. They've already given you two blood transfusions."

" _I said get out_!"

"In a bit," is the drawled reply. "As soon as I determine there's no hangers-on."

"What are you _talking_ about?!" Her knuckles are white around the sheet bunched up to her breasts. "How did you even _get_ here?"

"I had a Bollywood photoshoot in Kabdala. After I heard of your _misfortune_ , I flew in." He meanders to the foot of the bed, and sits down. "How do you feel?"

Saya's jaw is clenched, a vein pulsing in her temples. The delicacy of her loss—the brutal ongoing _intimacy_ of it—cannot endure Nathan's scrutiny. It begs to be slapped aside, like the Chevalier himself. She can't stand another living thing near her, beside her, inside her. Never again, for as long as she lives.

Nathan pets her foot underneath the sheet. She yanks her leg away.

"Where's Julia?" she snaps. "Where's Haji?"

The trademark eyeroll. "Never mind _him_. Silly girl. I'm asking about _you_. How did this happen? How did he get close to you?"

 _He?_

At first Saya thinks he means Haji. But beneath Nathan's sparkly articulation are darker roots. No amusement in his eyes, but an indefinable mix of danger and doom.

She whispers, "Did someone _cause_ this?"

The Chevalier looks grim. "There's only three ways a Queen miscarries. One is through extreme physical stress. I mean a Battle Royale bloodbath type of _extreme_. Second is by special herbs to purge her womb. As your mother used during her imprisonment, to thwart her enemies. The third… the deadlier purging… is when a competing Chevalier visits the Queen's bed."

"Wh-what?"

"It is why Queens were sequestered after pregnancy. Placing them in maternity colonies avoided mishaps. Only her own Chevaliers—or the father of her children—were allowed entrance. All others were barred from her chamber."

"Others? You mean…?"

"Her sister's _other_ Chevaliers. Or her aunt's." He sighs. "As your mother's Chevalier—may her songs bend the needles of Nál— _I_ could do you no harm. But if there was another…"

 _Another._

A fresh sluicing of pain goes through Saya. The memory of the attack in Gokokuji's cemetery. The blue-eyed stranger, the whistle of his fists a death dirge. The meeting in Paris, and Julia's findings of an ancestral Chevalier.

One who shared not a Blue Queen's blood, but a Red's.

"At the Sheraton," she whispers. "While I was asleep… someone came into my room."

Nathan's eyes sharpen into slits. "Did he touch you?"

"He—he got into bed with me." The muscles tremble up her arms. She crosses them across her chest. "I thought it was _Haji_."

His grimness deepens, and he nods. "That sounds like him."

"'Him'?"

Nathan doesn't answer. He leaps to his feet. The dark mood has evaporated; he rubs his hands together with the unconcealed glee of a wild fox at the scent of its long-lost quarry.

"O slitherer along the shores," he whispers. "O shadowy twilit thing. I vowed to her your beating heart. Which: _semantics_. Un-beating will suffice just as nicely."

"Who is he?" asks Saya. "How do you—?"

Nathan pats her head. "Sssh. Darling, dearest, dimwit. Let me savor the moment _._ _Une fois tous les trente-six du mois._ Once in a blue moon—or a red."

" _Will you talk sense_?!"

"Shh. Keep your voice down. You'll wake up the actual mommies and babies."

The room narrows into quivering red. Suddenly Saya absolutely _hates_ him, this vile trickster, splashing around in the messy spill of her despair. Squeezing her eyes shut, she counts backward to ten, and is infuriated to find him still there, swathed in glitzy high-fashion in this cramped hospital room, when what she really wants is to be alone and _home_.

Not home at the Zoo. Not even at the villa in Naminoue Beach. She wants to be home at Omoro, thirty years ago, in her cozy sunlit room with the _Stereopony_ posters tacked on the walls and Dad's cooking wafting from downstairs and melding with the air so that the house itself smelled of happiness.

A happiness that is long gone.

"You never told me this would happen!" she seethes. "You never told me about the other Chevalier!"

"Well of _course_ not! I wasn't expecting him to waltz into your bedroom." Nathan inclines his head, pensive. "My cardinal flaw. Mine and hers. We always underestimated him."

A glass cannonballs toward him. He ducks, and it shatters against the wall.

Saya is on her feet. Jelly-legged, but upright.

"You—you knew this would happen! You _knew_ I'd—"

"I knew no such thing." Nathan sniffs with affront. "If anything, I'm pleased."

" _Pleased_?!"

"About your optimistic ovaries! About Haji's serious swimmers!" He tips her a wink at the wordplay. "I would never have fathomed the tincture would work so well. It's my first purchase, after all!"

" _What_?"

" _What_ what? I'm a Chevalier. Not an apothecary!" His playfulness downshifts. "Heirs for Queens are no laughing matter. They're _certainly_ no business left to amateurs. The tincture I gave you was carefully-concocted by an old master. Its ingredients are dangerous, but deliver fast results."

"Results?"

"Correct." He crooks a finger. "Instead of waiting for the Queen's superovulating body to grow accustomed to her Chevalier's sperm in stages, the tincture does it in double-time. One drink diminishes her immune response just enough to stop the _Kiss of Death_ , as Red Shield calls it. It lets her welcome her Chevalier's little soldiers without fuss." A doleful sigh. "The herbs for this tincture are only available once in a lunar tetrad. A blood moon."

Saya's bones hollow themselves out. "A blood moon?"

"The most auspicious night, according to our calendars. It's when we make babies and wage wars." He brightens again. " _Fortunately_ , the tincture isn't the last. I've kept a spare."

In a wishbone snap, Saya's bones give out. She sinks to her knees on the cold tiles. She no longer has the strength to keep standing. Whole body a throbbing red bolus of grief; she can't taste or smell anything beyond her own blood. Hers, and her daughters. Other losses may fester into ghosts and scars. But this will never scab over; it will bleed into agony for the rest of her days.

Nathan's words aren't a comfort but a cruelty.

Cruelty of what she's lost. Cruelty of what can never be the same.

"Oh, quit sniveling," Nathan titters. "Soon as you're better, I'll give you the second tincture. And you can try again. You _must_ try again. Next Awakening, it may not be possible at a—"

He doesn't get to finish, because right that moment a hand falls on his shoulders like a lasso, a tug so forceful that Nathan has no choice but to turn around, to where Haji stands, the icing of neutrality in his expression dissolving into depthless rage, and then his fist loops out of nowhere, the knuckles pale speed-blurs before they connect with Nathan's face, the impact like fireworks on New Years but bloodier, Nathan reeling back with his hands flying to his face, and when he takes them away they are smeared in red.

" _Owwwww_! Motherfu—"

Haji hits him again.

The older Chevalier tumbles, as Kai sometimes puts it, _Ass over tits_. He collides against the wall, his natural grace displaced, and slumps.

"Haji!" Saya cries.

For once in his life, Haji is completely blind to her. His rage is too supercharged, a bloodthirsty machine powering up after years of dormancy.

Snatching fistfuls of Nathan's shirt, he _slams_ him up against the wall.

" _You_ began this." His unemphatic monotone is at its deadliest. " _You_ planted the idea in her head."

"Haji— _please_ —!"

"A puppet for you to play with. A weakness for you to exploit." Haji's eyes are drained of rationality, electric blue. "Never mind what a deranged idea it was. Never mind its impact on her wellness, or future, or _sanity_ —"

"It's what she _wanted_!" Nathan protests.

"What _she_ wanted? Or what you _made_ her believe she wanted?" Haji's knuckles whiten on Nathan's collar, speckled with red. "If I had known you would fill her mind with such folly, I would have never let you set foot in the villa. _I would have cut your tongue out where you stood—"_

Nathan laughs, a silky sibilation. His tongue darts out to lick away the blood streaking his lip. "Oh, _do_ go on. I've always said you're tastiest this way. Not a hair out of place and yet _bursting_ at the seams."

With an exhalation of disgust, Haji lets him drop. His eyes scope the room as if re-orienting himself. When they fix on Saya, they widen.

"Saya!"

He's at her side in eyeblink, kneeling to scoop her up. Saya barely feels it. Barely feels the mattress when he delivers her gently back to bed. Settled against the pillows, she stares at her feet, the toenails painted in shimmery pink. Their color seems to fill her head, a queasy dappled riot, her thoughts blinking in and out.

 _Folly. Weakness. Deranged._

She wants to speak. But she's afraid tears might betray her.

Like Haji has betrayed her. Revealing, with those cold words, how he truly feels. Revealing that his happiness earlier was a farce, born of solicitude rather than desire. Just like always. He's gone along with her madcap plans for years, schlepping his inner distaste. Like their little games at the Zoo. Like his resignation to follow her into the war. Like his promise to a death-pact he'd silently deplored.

His agreement to the babies was no different.

It's why he'd left her alone. Why he hadn't come in until the miscarriage, its ugly leave-taking, were over.

He is glad their daughters are gone. Glad, because otherwise they'd be like Saya: monstrous, mismatched, _mad_.

Her eyes boil. On reflex, she touches her cheek. But there are no tears.

It isn't grief she feels. It is undiluted _rage_.

When Haji's fingers brush her shoulder, she jerks away.

"Get out," she whispers.

"Saya—"

She shoves him so hard that he nearly topples; her temper has skyrocketed into a supernova, pulling her away from the hospital lights, from the pain and wretchedness, from Haji himself.

In the space left behind his face is open as a book before her, the sharpness of it crumpling into grief.

A grief that doesn't touch her because she is too far away, caught in a dreadful absence. And in that absence she comprehends two truths: She loves him. She loathes him. Loves his caring, his compassion, his closeness. Loathes his stoicism, his silence, his self-denial. Loves and loathes how the same facets of his nature that kept her strong in the war are impediments to ever forgetting it. Loves and loathes that she can entrust him with her life, with her family's lives, yet that trust is not the formula for her happiness. Loathes that the war has pared down his heart to the bare basics of black and white; loves that it has purified it to the insane intensity of Greek epics. She loves its transcendence—she loathes its weight.

Because he is what she made him.

Her servant, her sounding-board, her death-scythe. A man who can't comprehend the dimensions of peace, because he's only ever known war. Who can't be a lover because the perimeters of his psyche are defined by targets and threats; who can't be a father because his attention is only for _her_ , funneled, focused, fatal.

He is everything inescapable in her own self. The mirror she can't bear to glance twice at.

"Saya," Haji whispers. "Please forgive me. I should have been there to protect you. To protect our daughters—"

" _Your_ daughters?" Her voice is a killing quaver. "You mean the _Ifs_? The _Buts_? _The products of my madness_?!"

"Please. I did not mean—"

"Never let me hear you say again they were _yours._ Never let me hear you breathe a _word_ about them. The only thing they meant to you was a _risk_." Her mouth curdles. "The last risk you'll ever have to defend me from."

Haji's lips part. But nothing comes out. They both understand that this is how it will end: with the dried smears of their daughters still clinging to their skins.

In the corner, Nathan sighs, "Now kids—"

" _Get out_!" It is the whipcrack of a Queen. " _Both of you!_ _Out_!"

Haji and Nathan—tumbled from their boxing-ring and straight into the doghouse—exchange looks.

Nathan, po-faced, blows out a breath, but obeys. Haji lingers, but she doesn't look at him. There is nothing to look at. Less than nothing to say.

There are reluctant footsteps, then the quiet _click_ of the door closing. She jerks to the sound, like a marionette with its last string cut off. Released, she lets herself fall, into the disorder of the bedsheets, Venus with her petals scattered, sick-thoughted and immured, her glassful of poetry in shards.

Drawing her knees up, she weeps—raw, wrenching sobs.

Outside, a deafening cacophony of gunfire erupts.

* * *

 _Expect plenty of action next chapter. Saya needs to kick some cathartic butt - and we need a break from all the doom and gloom._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Review, pretty please! :)_


	33. Silhouette

_Happy Sunday, everyone! We've survived until the final chapter of Act II! Now the question becomes: will we live until Act III is over and done? I'll likely post the first chapter next Friday, and then begin my month-long hiatus. Be sure to check my tumblr for snippets and rambles, in between the Endless Queue._

 _CW: for blood and gore. If you got queasy with the series' violence (spec. the Vietnam Arc), then this chapter may not be for you. For those who enjoy adrenalized action and good ol' shoot-em-up antics, I hope this chapter provides all the mayhem your heart desires. Expect loads of angst in between, given the subject matter of the previous chapter, but also expect the plot-gears to begin turning._

 _Hope you enjoy, and review, pretty please!_

* * *

A taxi drops Kai, Yumi, Yuri and their Chevaliers off at the hospital.

The taste of early morning laces the air: dew dripping off the leaves, blueness limning the buildings. Kai squints in the encroaching glow. He's still bleary from the flight, each joint aching. Hasn't slept a wink since getting the phonecall about Saya's condition; on the plane, he'd suffered endless nightmares about great shadowy enemies the size of electric pylons closing in on Saya, while he screamed in fear and futility and could do nothing.

Fear and futility.

Two feelings he'd hoped desperately to shake after the war. Now they're back, familiar as a bad illness.

Inside, the hospital is a stark white labyrinth. He finds Dee and David on the fourth-floor, weary but wired. Julia stands off to the corner, conferring on her phone with fuck-knows-whom about fuck-knows-what. On the waiting-room couch, August—the new Chief—sits with drawn-up knees and a mouthful of candy, bingeing like a schoolkid before finals night.

"What's happened?" Kai asks without preamble. "Is Saya okay?"

David hesitates, his face set in an uneasy and slightly floored expression. Dee steps in. "She had a hemorrhage. We brought her in after we found her in the hotel bathroom."

" _Shit_ ," Yumi sucks in a breath. Beside her, Yuri's hand goes, instinctively, to her own belly. She whispers, "Her babies? Are they—?"

Dee swallows. "No."

Yuri shuts her eyes.

"Shit," Yumi repeats, a hoarse waver of shock. " _Shit_."

Kai's first impulse is to comfort them. But his lungs are emptied of air. His hands flex uselessly at his sides; his skin feels like it's ten sizes too small. Dehydration a thin disguise for grief.

"How?" he croaks. "How did she—?"

Dee ducks her head, hands slipping into her pockets. A cigarette is withdrawn, but she doesn't light up; just sticks it into her mouth. "Mom says it was caused by a 'Bruce Effect.' She had a spontaneous abortion."

" _What_?!"

Behind Kai, Sachi asks, "Is that, umm, common?"

"Not unless there's an enemy Chevalier closeby," Dee says. "Dad and me think it might've been—"

V crashtackles them all, practically lifting Kai off his feet as he chivvies everyone into the waiting room.

" _Down_!" he shouts. " _Get down_!"

A heartbeat later, the door to the fire escape slams open. Two black-clad men, masks covering their faces, burst into the room, throwing their coats open to reveal the dark gloss of P-90s. Swinging them at shoulder-level, they unleash a blast of gunfire at a shattering nine-hundred rounds per minute.

" _Fuck_!"

Bullets strafe across the carpet. Shred the walls and furniture into smithereens. Across the floor, screams ring out.

V kicks at the massive leather couch. It topples sideways, allowing the group to huddle behind it. A temporary buffer—enough for David, Dee and Julia to flank August, who is huddled white-faced and shocky as bullets shower a brutal hailstorm everywhere.

In the background, more screams. Bloodsplatters and toppled bodies intersperse the reverberating rounds.

"Hell!" David growls. His and Dee's Smith & Wesson Magnums are unholstered and held at the ready. "Is this what Haji was talking about?"

"Haji?" Kai's empty hands twitch; his gun is back in Okinawa. He hunkers lower as a bullet smacks the wall at his left. "What do you mean?"

Dee, rarely at a loss for words or weapons, unclips a 9mm Glock 19 from her thigh holster and flings it his way. "He said we'd been tailed into Karachi. And that there might be—" a bullet sizzles inches past her skull "—reinforcements nearby."

" _Reinforcements_? Who're they afte—"

"Will you all _shut up_?!" Yumi snarls.

Her eyes are glowing-red; wild energy percolates through her body. At her side, Yuri radiates an opposite, preternatural calm that concentrates itself in her ice-blue gaze.

"Keep low," she orders everyone. The sisters gear themselves with perfect synchronicity: three deep, steadying breaths. " _Now_!"

They burst in pale blurs past the couch, barreling toward the ruthless onslaught of gunfire. It is so fast the gunmen barely have time to orient themselves. One moment they are firing, the next moment, the two Queens are upon them. Bullets air-kiss the girls' bodies; one slices a neat red gash across Yumi's cheek, another singes the immaculate wave of Yuri's updo.

But their trajectory is clear, their momentum unstoppable.

Yumi rolls and comes up with a scythe-like kick that slams under the gunman's jaw, shattering it with a _crunch_. Yuri pirouettes, quick as a flash, ducking beneath the volley of bullets before thrusting her palm—heel first—right into the throat of her stunned opponent, crushing his windpipe.

Almost soundlessly, the men crumple. Their P-90s clatter away.

In the blown-apart silence, the girls straighten.

"Well," Yumi blows a wisp of hair off her face. "So much for reinforcements."

Yuri shakes her head. "They might be a distraction."

"She's right." David has emerged from the bullet-riddled buffer of the couch. Julia and August are close behind him, Dee bringing up the rearguard. "They could've been sent to divert us while another group went after—"

"Saya." Kai is cold with adrenaline and a darker layer of dread. "We need to check on—"

 _Blam._

From the opposite corridor, the second wave rolls in. An arc of gunfire spews down the corridor. Kai has time to glimpse another P-90 rifle sticking over the edge of the doorway—held by someone out of sight—before a massive shape obscures his vision.

V.

The big Chevalier holds the battered couch aloft, as easily as grabbing a pillow. His face is split in an irrepressible grin; he hurls the couch point-blank at the gunman. It swoops effortlessly through the air, cutting a dead-straight path toward the P-90. With a _crash_ , both the couch and the gunman topple.

Before the man can make his escape, a fast-streaking shape is upon him, a boot stomping down _hard_ between his shoulderblades.

Sachi.

Snatching the P-90 out of the gunman's reach, he aims the barrel squarely at the back of his skull in the same movement. His voice has dropped to a low, liquid roll of menace; no trace of _ummm_ anywhere. "Who sent you?"

The gunman groans and slurs something. It doesn't sound like _Hello_.

"That won't do."

Kneeling, Sachi closes fist around the guy's index finger—and _snaps_.

The gunman lets off a howl of protest. Sachi twists harder, until he sputters, "...otherfucker...!"

"That's more like it." Sachi's mild smile inverts into what it truly is: a fake gloss over a cold core of menace. "Now we know he speaks English." His gaze pins their captive in place. "Why are you here?"

"I watch for... Red Shield boss." The man's words are garbled by pain. His eyes water above his mask. "Catch him. Trade for the other."

"Other?" David asks. "Which other?"

The man makes a wretched noise, and doesn't answer.

Looming over him, Sachi takes a different tack. "How many more in the building?"

"...fuck... you..."

Sachi wrenches his next finger sideways. There is an audible _crack_. The gunman shrieks and thrashes, before forcing himself to go still. The pain seems to have sharpened his mind. He grasps the seriousness of his situation. Suffering is no longer his purview so much how to survive.

"Five," he pants. "Five outside."

"Who's your main target?" Dee asks.

"Red Shield boss... trade Red Shield boss... for her."

"Her?" Kai's voice is a rough grind; anger, urgency. "You mean—?"

"Me."

The doors to the maternity ward swing open. Inside, Kai glimpses the shocked faces of staff and sounds of hysterical sobbing: disaster amok in this place that is meant for silence, sleep, smiles.

All of which are currently in short supply.

Especially for Saya.

Kai's first impression of her is wan-verging-on-white. Like a ghost. Or a photocopy of a ghost. She wears a dress, a pink number from her Okinawa wardrobe, but her legs are modestly covered by black tights, even though the weather is humid. Her hair is uncombed, and slathered as if in greasepaint; the shadows under her eyes seem penciled in. She smells like sour sweat and a harsher undernote of blood.

" _Saya_!"

He starts toward her. She wards him off with a stiffly upraised hand.

"Please, Kai. Not—not now."

"Saya—you shouldn't even be on your feet!" Julia intrudes. "You're still bleeding. You need to—"

"She must leave here."

Haji follows after Saya, the door flapping in his wake. His eyes hold the comforting chill of an edged weapon, one that never fails to hit its mark in a combat zone. A beat later, the door disgorges a second Chevalier, decked out like a maharaja.

" _Nathan_?" Kai gawks. "The hell're you—?"

Nathan mimes a _shush_ , finger poised playfully at his lips. His eyes are ringed in dark like Saya's. But it is eyeliner, not exhaustion.

"Let sleeping babes lie," he whispers. "After all, we wouldn't want—" He spots August. The dark-fringed lashes bat dubiously up and down. "Dear me. Who are _you_ supposed to be?"

August proffers a single metal-studded eyebrow. "Right back at you."

"I asked first, Poptart."

"Keep asking." August swivels an offhand glance at Nathan's highheels. "Nice kicks, by the way. Vintage Goodwill?"

" _Excuuuuuuse_ you!" Nathan shrills into full peacock mode. "It's the latest Dries Van Noten!"

"Never heard of 'em."

" _Hmph_. No shock there." Nathan throws a pitying gaze skyward. "Gods of Gaytari, forgive our younglings their early-whirly sartorial shambles—"

In the background, doors open along the hall. A woman screams. Someone shouts, " _Get the police_!"

"We have to get out of here." David's flat voice captures their attention, refocusing them on the crisis at hand. "It's not safe. There's already too many casualties." He turns to August. "Orders, Chief?"

August blinks out of fashion-fraught stasis. "Orders?"

"On the next course of action?"

Kai wonders why David is bothering to ask. This kid is clearly at a loss. A bad sign: an iota of doubt from Red Shield's _Numero Uno_ will capsize the entire organization.

Then August exhales, and straightens. Kai can practically see the self-possession return in how the shoulders are squared, and how the eyes narrow into steadiness. And with a _poof_ Dead-Head Bowie becomes Joel Goldschmidt VII.

"Exit," August says. "They might be planning to attack again. Others could be on their way. Take the hostile along. We can pry their strategy out of him. And afterwards the identity of his employers, if need be."

"How do we get out?" Yuri asks. "There's more enemies outside. Not to mention civilians everywhere. It's risky to just waltz into the lobby."

"Maybe he can tell us their location?" Sachi prods his boot against the gunman's spine for emphasis. "Hn?"

" _Cómeme la polla_!"

V perks up with a crooked smile. " _Yo hablo español tambien, hijopu_ —"

The gunman's arm twitches. Something shiny and cylindrical drops from his sleeve into his palm. A handheld unit with a detonation switch on the top.

When Kai recognizes it, his eyes widen. "Get out of the way!"

Then gunman flicks the switch.

What happens next is very fast. Yet, for Kai, it unfolds in hellish slow-motion: a film playing frame-by-frame. The gunman's crazed eyes above his mask. Sachi's foot jerking away, his body torqueing almost balletically to evade. V, springing into action, his massive arms flexing to encompass Yuri and Yumi. Dee, both hands upraised over her head, the posture of a soldier ducking toward the nearest foxhole. David, jerking conversely _toward_ the gunman, his daughter's name on his lips, and Julia snatching his sleeve to haul him back. August, in a frozen stance of self-protection, head ducked and body curved inward. Nathan, eyes alit like a kid on a rollercoaster, his grin telegraphing, _I wonder what happens next?_

And Saya, her tiny frame toppled by a sweep of Haji's arm—before his whip-tense body propels itself forward.

Time resumes with a jolt.

The gunman vanishes—grenade in tow. Kai has time to discern Haji's dark-blurred body swooping toward the window at phenomenal speed, like the haze of a hummingbird's wing. _Faster_. Like the refraction of light itself.

 _Crash._

The window shatters from the impact, two bodies hurtling out and up, up, up. Dawn sunlight filters sap-yellow through the broken glass, shards sparkling like dustmotes in the air. Kai stares, and the thought-fragments pass behind his wide eyes: _The day really is beautiful._

Then there is a sine wave of pressure, a gut-shock of imperceptible ferocity. High above the building, in the blue blankness of the sky, the grenade detonates. Flames billow outward in a deafening explosion. The gunman and Haji's distant shapes are swallowed by the blast, wings of red fire enrobing their bodies. The echoes spiral through the neighborhood, a dense hot tornado spanning outward.

Below, the entire hospital rocks. Windows rattle in their panes. The corridor shakes, throwing everyone off their feet; Kai just barely manages to keep his balance. When he looks out the window again, there is only a smoke cloud, suspended in the sky.

Saya shrieks, " _No_!"

Awareness returns with a snap. Kai lunges to snatch Saya back before she leaps kamikaze-style out the window. She shrieks and struggles in his grip; panic transmits her pulse to him, a wild buzz at a wilder voltage.

" _Haji_!" she screams. " _Haji_!"

The sound pierces Kai on a quantum leap of memory. The night at the Met, when he'd wrenched Saya away from the crumbling disaster-zone of the opera house. Afterward, they'd had to sedate her so she'd stop crying. The first night, and then the handful of nights after. She'd never mentioned Haji in the daytime: the name didn't seem to be part of her lexicon then. The only time he showed up was in her nightmares.

Saya sways in Kai's arms, shivering and sobbing, "Haji, Haji, Haji…"

Behind Kai, Yumi whispers, "Fuck. He was packing an RDX grenade."

Kai cringes. Mother's last name isn't fucker, but RDX compounds are nasty as one. Bigger and badder than C4, they leave nothing but craters and carcasses in their wake.

 _It'll be okay,_ he thinks. _Haji's as tough as they come._

For Saya's sake, he refuses to consider the alternative.

Past the shattered windows, sirens whoop. Police cars. Fire trucks.

August says, not loud but steady. "We should go."

Nodding, Kai encircles Saya in one arm. The other keeps a firm grip on his borrowed Glock. When he urges Saya into motion, she doesn't resist. Her legs work mechanically; her eyes are shorted out into radio-static. The sight of them frightens Kai on a nearly sub-human level; as if he's witnessing not an implosion but a slo-mo spiral into derangement.

The pressure of a hand on his shoulder. He glances at Dee.

"Keep her in the center," Dee whispers. "Once we're moving, we'll be open to enemy sightlines. I don't want her taking the brunt of it."

"Got it."

His tone is businesslike, but a wave of warmth passes through him. _Typical Dee_. Feet on the ground and head in game. To think he'd once taught her every trick. Now _she's_ the one steadying _him_.

In a tight formation—V and Sachi flanking the front, Yumi and Yuri guarding the rear, August in the center, circled by David, Dee, Julia, Kai and Saya—they exit the corridor. Dee, on her earpiece, is conferring with HQ, requesting immediate back-up and a getaway ride. David, on his cellphone, finishes up last minute arrangements to helicopter August out of Karachi and to Red Shield's closest outpost.

"We can't take the stairs," Kai says. "They'll be expecting that."

"Same with the fire escapes," Yumi says.

"Not the elevator," Dee intrudes. "Not if it's the VIP way."

Kai understands, and nearly smiles.

It feels so incongruous, waiting at the glossy elevator bank with its tasteful carpets and muted lighting. With a _ding_ , the doors slide open. Their group shuffles inside. But August hangs back, eyes perturbed.

"Chief!" David hisses. "Move it!"

"Without Nelly Bojangles?"

"Who?"

"Nathan," Yumi realizes. "He's gone!"

"—the fuck?" Kai glances around. "Where'd he go?"

"Never mind that," David snaps. "No time."

Obeying, August ducks into the lift. The doors slide closed. David hits the eighth floor—the highest in the building. Kai's stomach bottoms out as the elevator ascends. He keeps a tight grip on his weapon, and a tighter arm around Saya. His sister remains disquietingly silent.

At the top floor, David keeps the button pressed to hold the doors closed. Behind him, Dee reaches up and tugs a panel on the elevator roof, revealing the maintenance hatch. Sliding it open, she leaps up, grabbing the hatch's edges to climb into the darkened space. One by one, the others follow her.

David is last. Leaning down, he replaces the panel, and jams the hatch shut.

The darkness is disorienting. The air smells strongly of grease and rust from the elevator's cables. They kneel on a wide ledge, waiting while David jimmies the trapdoor to the corrugated superstructure on the roof. When it breaks open, he lifts it a crack. A line of milky daylight pours through, superseded by a gust of cool fresh air.

"Someone needs to scout for hostiles," David whispers.

V eases his muscly body through the space "I'll go."

"I'll spot you," Sachi says.

Kai nods grimly. Sachi, with his sniper's training, is exceptionally stealthy. V, meanwhile, has strength and senses that verge on prodigal. Neither of them is Haji: his talents war-honed and preternaturally perfect.

But Haji isn't here.

"Be careful," Dee says. "Let us know if—"

"Easy, Big Dee. We know the drill." V claps Dee's shoulder, then gently hugs Yumi. "Give us a twenty-minute window. If we take longer, find another way out."

"Or go after your useless ass," Yumi says, with a smile but zero humor.

V mouths a goofy kiss at her. " _Semper Fi._ "

Carefully, he climbs into the corrugated shed. After sighting along its entrance, he discerns nothing, and signals to Sachi.

"My cue," says Sachi. Gently, he brushes his knuckles against Yuri's cheekbone. "Kiss for good-luck?"

She kisses his fingers, with the sweetness of ritual. Kai sees Saya wince and look away.

Sachi climbs out after V. The others sit in the dark, waiting, the adrenaline still crackling through their systems. One minute elapses into two. Then five. Then ten.

Nearing the fifteenth mark, Yumi hisses. "What's _taking_ 'em?"

"You think—" August represses a cringe. "Something might've happened?"

Yuri shakes her head. "Not to Sachi. I'd feel it." She hesitates, then peers at Saya. "What about you, Auntie Saya? Can you feel if Haji's—"

"Shut up." Saya's voice is unrecognizable: like something at the bottom of a drywell. "Please. Just… shut up."

Yuri recoils. Then she understands. Between the happy glow of her pregnancy and the solid aliveness of her own Chevalier, her whole presence is a slap to Saya's face. A reminder of her fresh failures.

"I-I'm sorry," Yuri whispers. "I didn't mean—"

At the shed's entrance, shadows loom. Sachi and V re-emerge, crouching to open the trapdoor. Sachi's face is freckled with blood. V has the beginnings of an angry bruise on the cheekbone. Otherwise, both are unscathed.

"There is an alternate stairwell leading down to a back-alley," Sachi says. "We can make out getaway from there."

"Any armed hostile?" David asks.

"One was posted at the restaurant across the hospital. Two more were lounging at the balcony of a two-storey building. We, umm, dispatched them."

"What about the fourth and fifth?"

"Unable to confirm."

"Then let's be careful." David hoists himself out, before handing out Julia, and then August. "Chief. There's an armored vehicle waiting for you in a garage a block away."

August frowns. "You can't expect me to leave you lot behind!"

"It's safer if you do."

"But—"

" _Now_."

David's face is a strained mask. Kai can tell the older man is balancing professional control with his urge to tell August how exactly _Uncle Joel_ was paralyzed from waist-down. Family lore has popularized the fiction of a 'hunting accident'; David appears reluctant to impart the grisly truth—that Joel had stubbornly refused to leave a combat zone.

A momentary pang of sadness grips Kai.

Damn. He misses Joel.

Their new Chief, a similar breed of stubborn, tries to argue. "Mr. David—"

"August. _Please_." This is Saya. Her features are rigid with exhaustion, but Kai is relieved to see the burn of life back in her eyes. "David's right. Our first priority is keeping you safe. Otherwise all the work we put into securing your place will be for nothing."

"Otonashi—I can't just—"

"You have to." Quieter. "You're a Shield now. We have no desires. Only duties."

The corners of August's mouth turn down. But the eyes—the exact shape and shade as Joel's—darken with understanding. In a reflex that is less authority than friendship, August says, "Be careful."

"I will."

"And promise we'll fly back to Stockholm for parsnip cake."

Saya's mouth twitches. A wan smile—but a smile nevertheless. "Promise."

Kai watches, and marvels. It's so like Saya, to smile even when she's collapsing inside. It is what she's always done. Even in the worst times, when no amount of strength is enough, when no guts or grit can salvage what's lost... she's never lost herself. Her resiliency is a fact of life for Kai, like the sky or the sea. It's what's inspired him to win his own wars, on a smaller scale. To never surrender his boyhood capacity to hope, as others must in bleak payment of adulthood.

So for Saya's sake, he _will_ hope.

That Haji is alive. That they will survive this. That they will return to Okinawa together.

Anything less is unacceptable.

* * *

The daylight has intensified.

The streets are a medley of sounds: taxis, rickshaws, donkey carts, fruit vendors, beggar children. The edges of the buildings simmer in the sunlight. The humidity is a stickiness over the skin; each inhale-exhale is like breathing inside a sauna.

Wincing, Saya wipes her brow. Her body is soaked with sweat. But she barely feels it. Her inner thermostat is haywire: caught in hot flashes one moment, rashed in cold gooseflesh the next. She is powerfully thirsty, but stopping somewhere for a drink is unthinkable.

They've split up into factions. David, Julia and V are escorting August to Red Shield's getaway ride. Dee, Kai, Sachi and the twins are guarding Saya. They move quickly through the streets, a rough zigzag that merges with the crowds, eyes watchful for enemies. In the distance, sirens wail at the hospital. Once in a while a police car zooms by, lights flashing.

The sounds pierce like divots into Saya's skull. The full force of the past few days threatens to engulf her. The anemic beige walls of the hospital room. The mess of the miscarriage on white tiles: dark, syrupy, sick. The endless tunnel of traveling and meetings, like peering backwards into the barrel of a very large shotgun. The volley of gunfire, people screaming, the violent surge of Haji's body sweeping hers aside, the explosion flowering in the blue sky.

 _Haji…_

Her body aches like a burst blister. Everything unreal, swinging from too-blurred and too-sharp between eyeblinks.

"You okay?"

Dee sets a hand on her shoulder. Saya realizes she is trembling. Inhaling, she forces herself to still.

"Yeah." She needs to keep things on lockdown. Now more than ever. "I'm all right."

"We can stop, if you need."

Saya shakes her head. "It's too risky. If someone spots us, they might open fire in the streets."

Dee nods. "Whoever these guys are, they're not shy about attracting attention."

"They're not." Saya's eyes track back and forth across their surroundings. But her mind stands still, searching for clues, connecting them to a bigger meaning. "I think they're mercenaries. Hired for under-the-table work."

"Abductions and assassinations, you mean."

"Mm."

"You think IBM-UAWA is financing them?"

"I'd count on it." She swallows. "It also means… that blue-eyed Chevalier might be nearby."

Dee absorbs this without slowing her stride. A dark spearhead of sweat plasters her white shirt. But she looks barely winded, like there's a core of steady permafrost built into her: clockwork calm. For the first time, Saya finds herself thinking what a good Chevalier (Chevalière?) she would've made.

Then she thinks of Haji, and it's like a blow to the belly. She can't breathe from the pain.

Dee's hand touches her shoulder again. "Easy." She lets go, and nudges Saya beneath a colorful awning. "Take a breather."

"Miss Dee…"

"No buts. If you collapse, I ain't carrying you."

Saya leans against the coolness of a grimy stone wall. Beneath the awning, a food vendor is cooking oily, delicious-smelling flatbread. He ladles it out with stickysweet heapings of _halva_ in saffron yellow. Dee buys a plate, and hands it to Saya. Practicality as much as kindness; neither of them has eaten in the past twenty-four hours.

The thought of food right now—neck-deep in danger, her daughters gone, her Chevalier _in absentia_ —is obscene. Yet the first taste of oily sweetness on Saya's palate awakens a wild hunger; she ends up vying with Dee to scoop up _halva_ between bits of flatbread, the two of them licking at their dirty fingers like street urchins.

It feels surreal, but then, the entire street feels surreal: the incessant ceaseless crush of _life_ while Saya's own is in shambles.

 _Don't think about that._

 _Focus on the threat._

Quietly, Dee says, "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"About… before."

Saya swallows. Her full belly makes her gorge swell, bitter-tasting. "Now isn't the time."

Dee nods. Then she hesitates, and says. "Just make sure you talk. Afterward." She wipes her greasy fingers on her jeans. "Keep this to yourself, but... the same thing happened to me. While I was on a mission."

" _What_?"

Dee's profile is nearly impassive. But her voice is softened with something like sadness. "Four years ago. On a Red Shield op in Mali. It had nothing to do with the op, though. I miscarried afterwards. While my fiancé and I were out on the streets, waiting for our ride. I was four months pregnant at the time. Then a car plowed into us. Right there on the street."

Saya digests this with horror. "My God. I'm so sorry—"

Dee shrugs. "It was a hit-and-run. Not a run-of-the-mill hit. Turns out drunk drivers are common anyplace."

"And your fiancé?"

"What about him?"

"Was he hurt too?"

"Dead."

"—oh God—"

"Two months later, of a ketamine overdose in a nightclub." She lights up a cigarette, takes a steadying drag. "We were already on the rocks by then. He couldn't cope. Not with the loss of the babies. Or how… out-of-it I was afterwards. Everything hard in me went to mush—and it terrified him—and we split. He couldn't deal with the strain of 'taking care' of me."

Saya swallows this factoid down. She whispers, "…twins…"

"Hn?"

"You said 'babies'. Were you carrying twins?"

"I was." Dee ashes out the cig. "They went the same way as yours. The first died right off. They tried to save the second. But it was no good. Everything bled out." Sighing, she runs a hand through her short hair. "It pretty much soured the whole mommyhood thing for me."

"Dee... that's…"

"Don't go feeling sorry for me. I'm better off baby-free." She smiles to soften the words: wry, rueful. "That doesn't mean it stops hurting. Or that you can't have a lot of thoughts about what happened, and feel angry and miserable at the same time."

"I'm not sure what I feel." Saya lowers her eyes. "Except that I need to survive this."

"That's fine too."

The moment is broken by the _ping_ of a text. Dee checks her phone, then relaxes a degree. "It's Dad. August is in the getaway car. They're heading to the helipad."

"We should get moving too."

Saya pushes herself out from beneath the awning. She glimpses Kai, the twins, and Sachi approaching, their faces pale blurs in the crowd of brightly-patterned clothing. It's a miracle that they don't stick out like bullseyes: foreign and frowning and on their own. But there are enough tourists populating the streets by this hour that her family blend in without strangeness.

Raising a hand to signal to them, Saya stills.

Cold locks around her body. A death-grip of déjà vu.

 _Oh no_.

Someone is nearby. The same presence from Sakurazaka Street. From Gokokuji's cemetery. From the Sheraton Plaza.

Sense-memory crowds in: the cool body sliding beside her beneath the sheets, the arms encircling her with inexorable intimacy, an intrusion that makes her ripple with disgust.

 _It's that Chevalier._

A spikewave of adrenaline takes Saya. She spins toward Dee. "— _Watch ou—"_

She hears it coming before she sees it: a lightning-fast _something_ careening toward her. Not a Chevalier. Two men on a motorbike. The fourth-and-fifth hostiles Sachi and V had missed earlier.

The rider cuts toward her in a wide circle. The passenger hefts a P-90, its muzzle angled straight toward them.

" _Get down_ —!"

Saya barely gets the words out before the P-90 opens fire, bullets stitching across the road. Pedestrians holler and scramble out of the way. Saya ducks behind a parked car, bullets shattering the glass. Dee dives clear of the fire-storm, taking cover behind a dumpster. In the same motion, flattened on her belly, she sights along her Magnum and pulls the trigger. Once, twice.

The range is thirty meters. But even with no time to steady herself, her aim is dead-on.

One bullet grazes the gunman's arm. But the other wallops off the motorcycle's spinning tire. It disintegrates into shreds, the motorcycle fishtailing, veering wildly across the street. It crashes, _hard_ , against a traffic signal. The two enemies, shell-shocked, stagger woozily to their feet. One reaches for his fallen P-90.

 _Blam! Blam!_

Shots fired from the opposite direction. One slug impacts the gunman's chest, spraying red. The other hits the rider straight in the skull, blood and brains fountaining outwards.

Both men drop in dying spasms.

"Dee!" Kai races toward them, gun in hand. "Saya!"

Everywhere there are panicked screams. The crowd is a stampede, racing helter skelter. Saya pushes through them, dodging elbows and outflung arms as she tries to get to Kai. Yumi, Yuri and Sachi are hot on his heels, buffeted by the crowd. But there is no obscurity in this crush. No safety in numbers.

They are sitting ducks, so long as that Chevalier is nearby.

" _Kai_!" She pushes crazily toward her brother. " _Kai—we need to_ —"

A roar like earthbound thunder. In the melee, the screams reach a deafening pitch. Then Saya sees it. A black Humvee plowing through the crowd, its massive wheels rolling brutally, crushing man, woman and child alike. For a moment it is almost comical: the vehicle big and heavy as a beetle, trampling bodies Iike ants. But with each _crunch_ of rubber on gravel, dark smears of blood, garnished with hair and clothing and bones, glisten sickeningly across the road.

The Humvee swings to a stop at 180 degrees, bodies bouncing off its armored exterior. It cuts off Kai and twins' path toward Saya.

The doors swing open. Three men burst out. Two crash-tackle Yuri, who is closest to them. The third wields a syringe with a hypodermic needle. Before Yuri can so much as shriek, he jabs the needle into her arm.

Saya's gaze burns across the distance, reaching for her. " _Sayuri_!"

Her niece looks stunned by the needle's impact. But a heartbeat later, her expression changes. Her eyes take on the disconnected, swimmy aspect of a sleepwalker. Her arms flop bonelessly, legs giving out beneath her. She slumps across the road and goes still.

" _Sayuri_!"

Before Saya can race toward her, the four men haul Yuri up. As one, they bundle her into the Humvee. The doors slam shut. The vehicle roars to life, throwing itself in reverse, backing clear of obstacles before speeding off down the streets.

Queen in tow.

" _No_!" Yumi's snarl is the darkest depth of a full-bodied rage. " _Yuri_!"

She lunges after the Humvee. A bullet strikes the pavement near her foot. Its ricochet echoes through the air, a cold thunderbolt over the febrile disorder of the crowd.

Saya and the others freeze. The shot had come from one of the buildings. A sniper on standby?

"Fuck!" Kai holds his gun ready. Beside him, Sachi scans around, searching for a target. "How many of these guys are there?"

"A full squadron." Dee has caught up with them. Her eyes squint for scope from one building to another. "But why'd they take Yuri?"

"It doesn't matter! We have to go after them." Sachi jerks at the impact of a second bullet spewing concrete chunks behind him. "Shit!"

"It's a ploy," Saya breathes. "They're buying time to take off."

Almost simultaneously, two more bullets drill the pavement near her feet, leaving dime-sized holes. Leaping clear, Saya lets her senses take over, the world tilting at a skew, colors streaking at the edge of her vision. Her sinuses burn with the fug of foul terror, then nothing but blood.

Beating blood, a tattoo of scent and sound leading home to the source of the bullets, to the man pulling the trigger…

"There!"

She aims a finger at the terrace of a high-rise garden, potted plants half-obscuring a hunched shape.

Sachi's eyes narrow. "I see him."

Snatching Kai's Glock, he drops fluidly to one knee, propping an elbow on the upraised thigh of the other leg, aligning his vision to his target. Before the sniper can fire, he pulls his own trigger, a Chiropteran's reflexes meeting a trained sharpshooter's speed, a single shell-casing spitting out in a golden flash.

 _Crack_.

His aim is deadly accurate. The high-velocity, hollow-pointed bullet enters the sniper's skull near the temple. The resulting gaseous expansion mushrooms outward. The man's head erupts like an overripe melon. Lurching past the railing, he crashes to the street below.

"Yuri." The name passes Yumi's lips before Sachi even lowers the gun. "We need to get Yuri."

"Anyone get a read on the direction of the Humvee?" Dee asks.

"Toward the freeway." Taking the Glock back, Kai racks the slide. "Call Red Shield's HQ. Maybe they can cordon the road—"

Above, something flickers, casting a long shadow across the streets.

It is followed by a sound—whisper-soft yet powerfully rhythmic, a _whoosh_ cutting through empty air.

On the streets, civilians point and scream. Bewildered, Saya and the others glance up. Sunlight throws dappled colors across the sky: the shape cutting through is a vertical slash surrounded by a prismatic nimbus.

Saya doesn't speak. She can barely move.

The first thing that comes into focus are the wings. A dark armature of angles, they span into the curve of the sky, tough as leather at the radiale, thinning into a nearly translucent film at the tips. The span is tremendous, easily stretching to twenty feet. They are connected by a dense collection of muscle groups to a body that isn't batlike, but isn't human either. The texture of the flesh, red and dark scales, shimmers like embers in the sunlight. The torso is svelte with animal strength, muscles cording the fur-bristled arms, hardening into knuckles like graphite, with heavy black-tipped claws. The legs are the same, long and low-arched as a runner's beneath a bristly coat of fur.

And the head…

"Oh fuck," Kai whispers. "Oh. _Fuck_."

Saya's eyes widen.

A bullet-shaped skull, the ears jutted back, wide and sharp as spades, crown a snout as dark as soot, the muzzle mottled with blood. The eyes are a chilling blue, and the teeth curve dagger-sharp in the glittering sunlight.

Around the street, shrieks of terror echo and re-echo, mass hysteria feeding on itself. People scramble mindlessly as the creature swoops downward, with a shutter-snap of its powerful wings.

Instinctively, Dee and Kai take aim with their guns.

"That's him!" Dee shouts. "That Chevalier!"

" _No_!"

Saya blocks them off. Her eyes are fixed on the flying Chiropteran. The claws, the wings, the blue eyes, all coalesce into a jarring shock of recognition.

Behind her, Yumi gawks in understanding.

"Holy shitballs! That's _Haji_!"

* * *

This has gone from bad to worse to hysterical.

Perched on the edge of the rooftop, beyond Saya's sensory range, Tórir laughs.

Behind him, the Somalian, rifle-at-ready, tilts his head. "What's so damn funny?"

"Everything."

So much for the allure of an easy catch. August has escaped, precluding the chance to kidnap him and bargain for Saya. Red Shield's reinforcements are likely on the way. Their original quarry of Red Queen + Haji + three humans has risen to eight, and flipped the tables to become the hunters. Tórir's operation is in shambles, its goal sidetracked.

 _It was worth it._

 _Especially for a wonderland such as this._

The streets are an orchestra of screams: high and blood-curdling, the sounds of humans broken and dying. A peculiar odor rises into the air: the soup of blood and body fluids and undiluted fear, broiling in the tropical sun.

When Tórir was a boy, he'd once rolled a flaming, oil-filled barrel down a hill toward the village. Middle of the night, the grass laced with frost. The barrel tumbled unsteadily downhill, then picked up speed, flames caught in the eye of centrifugal force until they resembled a comet crashing through the air, brash and brilliant and blinding, the oil sloshing in blazing trails across the hillside, the wood shattering into fiery shards, everything rushing unstoppably towards the nearest thatched hut.

Such a beautiful lightshow after it went up in flames.

That is what the panorama reminds him of: a barrel of oil with the match struck.

"We ought to withdraw," the Somalian says. "We've got what we wanted."

"Wanted?"

"The Queen."

Tórir doesn't glance around. His eyes are on Saya's distant shape, so small yet somehow lit up in a blaze that outrivals the chaos of the streets. And looming above her, wings billowing like smoke, her Chevalier. A black beast summoned by the blood-song of his mistress.

"The _Queen_ you took," Tórir says, "is not the one I want."

"Does it matter? One's as good as any."

Tórir's smile stays in place. But his fist, lifting lazily, lashes out and cuffs the man to the floor.

" _Christ_! What was that for?"

"That was for failing at the simplest task your unit was assigned."

Turning, Tórir seizes up the man's rifle, taking it in both hands and _twisting._ The metal bends like putty, then cracks in two.

The expression on the human's face is nearly comical. He tries to scramble away. But Tórir's foot plants squarely on his chest, keeping him in place.

"Hey!" His cry skews into a reedy pitch of panic. "What—what're you _doing_?"

"Demonstrating the consequences of failure." Tórir exerts an ounce more pressure with his foot. In the sunlight, his smile takes on a subzero chill. "One Queen, you see, is _not_ as good as any. In taking the Red Queen, we were employing the same strategy as a snake-catcher."

His foot presses harder. The human grunts, agony branching across the ladder of his ribs. His breaths come in ragged gulps.

"In taking Saya," Tórir says. "We were crushing the skull of their operation, leaving the rest to flail blindly."

More pressure. The _crick-crack_ of breaking bones. The human _howls_.

"Whereas taking the other Queens," Tórir continues, "is the equivalent of snatching a viper by the tail. All you have done is ensure that the head torques around—and sinks in its teeth."

 _Craaaack_.

His foot breaks through the human's ribcage, flattening the pumping fist of heart. It's like stomping through a wet marsh, twigs and slippery leeches at the muddy bottom. The human thrashes spastically. His exhales are bubbly with blood; his open mouth froths with it. Splinters of ribcage puncture his lungs.

After a few interminable moments, he goes still.

Tórir withdraws his foot. It is sludged with blood, a thick stream of it dripping down. The ragged-edged hole in the human's chest discloses a pocket of oozing red, delineating the curve of Tórir's boot-print so perfectly it may have been custom-made for him.

The rest of the mercenaries will suffer the same fate.

The price of incompetence.

Tórir glances back toward the streets. Saya has leapt for Haji, her hair flying, her body performing a _grand jeté_ with the smoothness of a ballerina. Haji is the same, his arms sweeping out to enfold her, muscles visible under the thin stretching of flesh in a lethal combination of power and precision.

With a rhythmic snap of wings, he soars off, his shape silhouetted sharply against the edgeless blue sky.

Tórir watches them go, and smiles thinly.

 _Now's the time to know their measure._

* * *

It happens incredibly fast.

From gliding across the sky, Haji lets off a roar like a high-explosive concussion grenade. He catapults downward. Saya and the others see the pockmarks of burns beneath his scales, in the split-second it takes the Chevalier to cover the hundred feet separating them.

Then he is swooping into their midst.

Saya doesn't hesitate. She races toward her Chevalier, a hand outstretched. Haji lashes out with his claw. Their fingers mesh. Haji pulls her up and into his arms, with the smoothness of muscle-memory—ghosts of feedings and waltzes and kisses sustained under the skin. Then his wings flap in a thunderous sweep; he surges upward at a speed that is breathtaking, terrifying.

Saya isn't afraid.

The streets drop away, buildings blurring into the blueness of sky. A vertiginous emptiness grips Saya, like when a roller coaster catapults upward right before the drop. Nestled in Haji's arms, she feels the coiled ferocity of his musculature. He radiates an ultraviolet heat; it seeps into her bones like an elixir.

Like fate.

Bitter and broken as things are between them, right now the conflict falls away. There is only this: blood and heat and heartbeat. A Chevalier's unbroken pact to his Queen.

"Yuri," she says, barely a whisper. "We need to find Yuri."

Haji absorbs the command. His chest thrums against her cheek. His breath, fanning her hair, is bittersweet with smoke and blood. She guesses the shock of the grenade-blast must have triggered his Chiropteran state; disgorging it from his human skin like something shaken from its chrysalis.

The transformation sharpens his speed, and attunes his senses. Taking slow droughts of the air, he narrows at once on a focused point below. The city is a patchwork of greens and grays. The roads snake in perfect patterns of geometry, sunlight catching the surfaces of cars, making them glitter like scales.

The black gleam of the Humvee catches Saya's eye.

" _There_!"

Haji dives like a heat-seeking missile.

The wind shrieks in Saya's ears. Pressure beats against her temples. The highway rushes at her: flaking tarmac, speeding cars, the shiny carapace of the Humvee. Haji's wings cast a distorted ripple of shadow across the vehicle, perfectly parallel, keeping pace.

The Humvee's sun roof slides open. A man leans out, head and shoulders, hoisting an M-261 rocket launcher. He aims it squarely at Saya and Haji, and jams the trigger.

In a billowing plume of smoke, the warhead blasts out, streaking towards its target.

Haji reacts swiftly, veering to the left on low-angled wings. The warhead arcs past him, up and then down, gravity insisting. It smashes against a building, detonating spectacularly, concrete chunks disintegrating in a blast of flames. Across the highway, cars fishtail, horns blaring, tires screeching.

Seizing the distraction, the Humvee picks up speed, trying to outrace their hunters.

Saya doesn't give them the chance.

Bracing her body, she breaks free of Haji. One moment she free-falls, arms spread wide. Then next, she slams against the Humvee's roof, feet-first, like a cat. The vehicle careens wildly. One side scrapes across the highway guardrail, metal singing against metal, sparks spitting into the air.

For a moment Saya is nearly unbalanced. In the next, she is upon the man with the rocket launcher. Her boot _slams_ against his jaw, teeth breaking with a brittle crunch. The man groans and reels back, blood gushing from his mouth. Saya seizes a fistful of his shirt and _yanks_. He struggles, swinging a blow for her head. Saya ducks around his fist, hauling his body clear off the sun roof, and shoves him off the Humvee's edge.

Howling, he collides with the tarmac to roll clumsily across the road before skidding to a stop.

" _Bitch_!"

A second man leans out of the rear window. His teeth are bared and his sunglasses reflect the doubled skyscape, twin glowing discs of sun bisected by the dark slash of Haji's wings.

In his right hand, he wields a pistol.

Taking aim, he fires. In a split-second, Saya rolls. The bullet whines past her cheek, a burning line of pain. Blood spills, shockingly bright. She has no time to wipe it away. The Humvee is veering violently left to right, trying to dislodge her; she scrabbles at the edges with her nails, struggling to hold on.

The mercenary aims and prepares to shoot again. But Haji swoops in, his dark wings expanding like a nightmarish umbrella across the Humvee, his hind leg lashing at the man's torso. Razor-sharp claws slice through muscle, cleaving it to shreds. Blood splatters everywhere. The man howls, his pistol skittering out of reach. Then Haji's claw curls inward; with brute ease, he drags the screaming man out the window, tossing him down the freeway.

Saya seizes the opportunity to leap into the open sun roof. Four mercenaries inside: one at the wheel, three in the back. Yuri's prone body sits between them, head drooping toward her chest.

 _"...the fuck?!"_

 _"What's she doing in here?"_

 _"Get her! Get her now!"_

Before they can whip out their weapons, Saya's leg pistons toward the closest man with crushing force, bashing across his skull. The man lurches back, his nose shattered, pouring blood. In the same eyeblink, Saya pivots, angling her body, palm flashing out, ramming it straight against the second man's throat, crushing his Adam's apple. The third mercenary, ducking beneath her onslaught of blows, rears up, snarling and wild-eyed, with something gripped in his fist.

Not a weapon.

A hypodermic. Glinting with the same fluid used to sedate Yuri.

He lunges at Saya in the Humvee's cramped interior, aiming the needle for her throat.

Saya torques her body, her back up against one of the doors. One leg flashes out, a kick connecting with the hypodermic, sending it spinning away. She follows the movement, slamming her foot against the man's throat, pinning him against the door on the opposite side. Her boot-heel jams hard against his windpipe, snapping his chin upwards, crushing his face against the window. Blood streaks across the cobwebbed glass.

"Pull over!" Saya snarls at the driver.

From the front seat, panicked curses fly.

" _Pull over, dammit! Pull over_!"

The driver scrabbles one-handed into his pocket. Saya turns her head—

Just in time to see him withdraw a familiar cylinder with a switch. The same one that the gunman at the hospital was carrying.

Saya's eyes widen.

" _Don't_ —"

The RDX grenade bounces off the backseat and toward Saya. She stares at it, suspended momentarily in mid-air, her vision spellbound by the perfect zigzag of light that glints off its silver finish.

Then she moves.

Diving forward, her foot letting the last mercenary drop, Saya swipes at the grenade, flinging it back toward the front-seat. In the same beat, Chiropteran-fast, snatching up Yuri, she kicks at the closest door. It snaps open, wind rushing in. She hears the deeper rumble of the Humvee's engine.

And jumps.

The Humvee is doing over 120. The impact of the fall is bone-shattering. She hits the tarmac, arms and legs folded around Yuri, their bodies rolling, skidding, scraping. Unstoppable. Pain and adrenaline come together for Saya, a hot buzz across her body. Tires screech and cars swerve wildly, trying to avoid her tumbling body.

In the distance, the grenade detonates.

Flames roar over Saya, the heat scorching. The Humvee disintegrates with astonishing force, its parts shooting high in the air, showering the freeway with chunks of smoke-spewing metal. The concussion wave pulses outward, knocking Saya flat. Her whole body is levelled with pain: the sharp stabbing of broken bones, the dull blossoming of contusions, and the gut-deep ache in her groin. Her black tights, laddered and torn, are soaked with blood.

In her arms, Yuri is motionless. But breathing. Saya feels the slow rise-and-fall of her chest.

 _Thank God._

Gratitude surges with pure delirium, tailed by exhaustion. In the sky, wingbeats echo. Haji's shadow circles the freeway, spiraling toward her.

Saya lets her eyes drop shut. Despite the blood beating hotly across her nerve-points, she feels paralyzed by a slow-spreading cold. By degrees, she cradles Yuri closer. Splays her palm across the girl's belly. Beneath the snakebeat of her somnolent pulse, she senses two others, strong and steady.

Safe.

A moment later, two highheels appear inches from Saya's face. Blearily, she peers up. Rays of sunlight carve the outline of a tall man, setting the glittery whorls of his golden hair alight.

Nathan.

He isn't looking at her. His eyes are fixed, past the wreckage of the Humvee blurred by trembling flames, at a stranger standing by the guardrail. The sunlight supersaturates the road into a heat-shimmer, robbing the scenery of full dimension. The man is no more than a silhouette.

As Saya watches, the man spreads his arms wide. A sign of greeting?

Challenge.

 _I'm not finished yet._

Nathan chuckles deep in his throat. But his eyes are ellipses of the blackest ice.

Spreading his own arms, he mirrors the pose.

 _Neither am I._

* * *

 _Act III, Chapter 1, hits this Friday!_

 _Feedback is delicious, and keeps me inspired! If there's something you liked/disliked, please don't hesitate to share! :)_


	34. Act III: Queens

_Early-ish update! Kicking off Act III with the first chapter, before my hiatus begins! I'll likely resume posting by mid to late October or so! As always, your feedback means the world to me, and I hope the final act will be a rollicking good ride - or at least a marginally entertaining one :)_

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Is it my turn to speak again?

 _Goodness_ , you caught me off-guard! I was rubbing hands and making plans, as one does in preparation for war.

You're shocked? _Qué tontería!_ Surely you should've guessed the outcome of this tale. A fiery fracas in triptych. A balancing act by fate.

This is a story of Chiropterans, after all. For us, war is all but a biological imperative. It's blueprinted into our brainstems. Not war-as-sport, the way humans do it. We're smarter than that as a species. War-as-vendetta is how we prefer to think of it. An eye for an eye. A Queen for a Queen.

Because war always pivots on the rise and fall of Queens.

Tórir—the youngest of six brothers—killed mine. Drove the Blue to madness. Diced the Red to messes. Thanks to his machinations, an entire dynasty was obliterated, its fragments scattered like stardust across the corners of the world.

I am one fragment. Tórir is another.

Understand me: we are not on a 'right' or a 'wrong' side. For Chiropterans, such delineations do not matter. Nor do I fight to resurrect our fallen empire. Its glory is a carbonized imprint in memory. It will never be recaptured in another place or time, and nor should it be.

No.

I fight for blood.

Blood branching from the veins of one Queen to another. From primogenitor to offspring.

From mother to daughter.

Picture the red webbing of Wyrd that binds each player in this story. All that frenzy of dreams, drives, fears, failures thrashing around within a knotting of blood. Diva's and Saya's bloodlines are thick with tragedy, and the echoes of that tragedy shaped their future selves. Tórir and I are no different. Our human ancestors were fishermen and farmers and seafarers and sluts—but the Queens, our rebirth mothers, imbued within us the ferocity of warriors.

Tórir fought to break free from those bonds. As a human, as a Chevalier.

Rejecting the laws of Queens and men alike, he set out to craft a world to his image, where the survival of the fittest was warped into the reign of monsters. He cared little for the regenerative cycles of give-and-take embodied by the _Blood Tax._ Nor did he respect the tradition of sequestering princesses during wartime—a blind spot that cost his own daughters their lives.

So it goes for narcissists who fancy themselves trailblazers. Lacking the purity of purpose, all they do is spread ruin everywhere. Those closest to them are always ruined first. _Així és la vida!_

I sympathize with Tórir. I do.

But I cannot allow what he intends. A world of hellfire, and hardship, and hatred. Queens in chains of servitude; their powers perverted into war-machines. Princesses as pawns to be bartered by power-mad humans. There is no superstructure of civilization in such a world. No Truth, or Beauty, or Love.

And nothing to sustain itself, either. It will collapse under the weight of its own greed.

Don't mistake me! I care little one way or another if the humans survive. I've known my share. Some were idiotic. Some were intriguing. Many possessed unique qualities that indelibly marked their place in history as messiahs, martyrs and madmen. Like that quirky Florentine—Da Vinci. Like that sweet French girl—Joan d'Arc. Like the Buddha, and Boudica, and goddamn St. Benedict. I have observed several of your kind for centuries, taking from them my loves and my lessons. Learning how they bend, how they break, their private foibles and their secretest pressure points.

An interesting pastime. I could carry on for centuries, committed solely to my games.

But my Wyrd dictates differently.

My Wyrd, and by proxy, Saya's.

Both of us have been led, unceasingly and unerringly, toward this path. Like the koan of _Hyakuj_ _ō_ _and a Fox_ , we cannot elude its grand design of cause-and-effect. We can twist in its web, playing its strings, but the vibrations of Wyrd will beat to their own rhythm.

The rhythm of our shared blood.

As a Chevalier, my Wyrd and my blood are forfeit to my Queen. No matter the sloughing of skin and centuries, my sightline has never changed, and my place in the bloody web remains fixed. Everything I've ever been and known and done has funneled into this point: the sum total of all my choices.

And I chose willingly, to make it so.

It will be no different for Saya. Each moment, immeasurable in time, will act as the hinge for her survival. Everything she chooses to say, to do, to _become_ , will determine whether she shares the Red and Blue Queens' unhappy fates—or walks away with blood on her sword and Tórir's severed head gripped in her fist.

Perhaps she will. Perhaps not.

The threads of Wyrd are difficult to untangle, connected in ways the elude even my ken. And the links of a Queen's blood—its essential mystery, its power to drive her to victory or victimhood—remain beyond my eternal scope.

All I know is that the line has been drawn in the sand. The gauntlet has been thrown. The countdown has begun.

And I will be there, when the final blow is struck.

* * *

 _Terrorists kill at least sixty people in an attack on the Holy Family Hospital in the Pakistani port city of Karachi._

 _Gunshots were heard at about 06:30 local time (01:30 GMT) inside the hospital maternity ward in the East Garden area. Separatist militants who oppose foreign building projects in Pakistan say they carried out the attack. Twenty people have been reported killed, and at least a dozen injured. Eyewitnesses also reported seeing a blast outside the hospital, and local TV channels broadcast images of a plume of smoke. There is a heavy police presence in the area which has been cordoned off._

 _In another incident at 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT), at least 30 people were killed in shooting spree along M.A. Jinnah road, followed by a bomb attack. The blast occurred near the city station circuit railway. Police say suicide bombers in a vehicle drove into rush hour traffic._

 _A spokesman for the Pakistan Army National Guard states that additional details will be released once the investigation is concluded…_

Kai pockets his phone.

"So we're opting for the usual?" he says. "Terrorist attacks?"

"August has Red Shield working with the local authorities," David says. "They'll plant seeds to throw off the media. Point fingers at ethnic clashes or a pipeline rupture. Jam phone signals and the internet to stop suspicious images from being distributed."

"The classic cover-up inside a cover-up," Dee sighs. "Nice."

"Better than admitting to the existence of Chiropterans."

The day's fiery furor has ebbed to a scrorchmark of self-preservation: August back in Paris to contrive a scheme for damage control, while Nathan chases after the shadowy figure of the enemy Chevalier. The rest of the team are in a safe house near the city harbor—a deteriorating three-story husk in the halogen-lit warren of the shipping district. Faded burns decorate the building's walls, remnants of a long-ago fire. The boarded-up casement windows glow intermittently with pulsars of light. Shipping trucks in the adjacent lot rumble emphysemically toward their destinations.

The interior is at once spacious and stuffy. Cement walls, sheet-covered furniture, a kitchen stocked with canned foods. Digs fit for a king.

 _Or a Queen._

Kai's gaze flicks to the bedrooms. In the first, Sayumi and Sayuri are fast asleep, their Chevaliers stationed like guards at the corridor. In the other, Saya is under Julia's watch, her body hooked up to fresh blood-packs. She'd slipped in and out of consciousness during their ride here. Adrenaline-crash—but also the bloody aftermath of her miscarriage. Kai thinks queasily of her used-up paleness, and her shadow-edged eyes. The agony radiating off her was palpable.

Of course, there is agony, and there is agony.

He remembers Saya in their highschool days. How she'd catch spiders inside paper cups to let them go outside. How one time she'd found a baby bird on the sidewalk, its wings fine as rice paper. Deaf to Kai's protests, she'd taken it home nestled in her sweater. Dad had kept it in in a shoebox stuffed with leaves and straw, feeding it water through a tiny dropper. When it was strong enough, they'd taken the box to the park, and rested it on a bench. The bird had skip-hopped out, fluttered its wings, then flown off. Saya was so happy she'd burst into tears.

All that fuss over a bird. How much more excruciating it must've been, to lose her children?

Dee touches his shoulder. "You okay?"

Kai inhales, allowing his concern to ease off Saya. Taking Dee's hand, he squeezes it. "I'm good."

"We'll move Otonashi out in seven hours."

"Back to Okinawa?"

"My teams have done a full-out sweep. It's safe." Her breath puffs out in a sigh. "Our vacation plans are shot to shit, though."

Kai kisses her.

In the background, David coughs but otherwise lets the exchange pass. Neutrally, he says: "I'll contact Lewis and see if he can get any leads on whoever hired those mercenaries."

"Otonashi thinks it might've been IBM-UAWA," Dee says. "She also said she sensed that ancestral Chevalier."

"So they're affiliated, as suspected," David muses. "The question is, what do they want with Saya?"

"Or Yuri," Kai says. "They had drugs ready when they nabbed her. Like they were prepared to leave with a Chiropteran Queen."

Dee frowns. "For what purpose? Experiments?"

"Or something worse."

The familiar voice diffuses like ink into the room.

Haji is back from his reconnaissance-run. He's changed out of Chiropteran form and into his ordinary wrappings: a black suit that hangs in impeccable lines, his shoes polished, his face poised, not a single hair out of place.

Standing in the doorway, he resembles a daguerreotype portrait.

"That Chevalier," he says. "He slipped into Saya's room at the Sheraton Plaza. He caused her hemorrhage."

This goes through Kai like a nail to the chest. Beside him, Dee cringes. "So it was part of the hit? To make her easier to capture?"

Haji nods.

David digests this detail with characteristic pragmatism. "This isn't good. I'll request August for extra troops to be stationed at Okinawa. At least in the interim."

"After the enemy's first failure, it is unlikely they will try a repetition," Haji says. "Red Shield should focus on any unsavory genetic testing overseas."

"I'll comb through the list of usual suspects," Dee says. "See if anything pops up."

Haji nods again.

The safe-house stews with post-disaster silence for a moment. Kai finds himself studying Haji closely. The Chevalier has armored himself in impassivity, same as always. Yet Kai has the impression of something trapped under the surface—a kernel of emotion beneath layers of rigid control.

Something almost like grief.

Then David cricks his neck. Dee yawns. The nightfall deepens into dizzying fatigue. Everyone is in various stages of discomfort: tired, stiff, sluggish. Barring future exigencies, David resolves they should get some rest.

On the stairs, Kai draws Dee into his arms, and kisses her again, more lingeringly. From the corner of his eye, he sees David steel himself with a nearly invisible wince, then go on his way.

"Get some sleep," Kai murmurs to Dee.

She tries a mock-sexy pout, but a yawn escapes midway. "You aren't coming?"

"In a bit." He jerks his chin toward Haji. "Gotta ask a few questions first."

Dee gives him a dry glance of understanding.

Kai listens to the stairs creak as she walks away, taking the scent of butterscotch and warmth with her. In the kitchen, he finds Haji silhouetted by the window, carefully monitoring the perimeter. With the pale gloss of moonlight falling through the tempered glass, the space is bright, even with the lamps shut off.

The Chevalier seems a part of the brightness, and silently spooky. A wolf on the prowl.

Without turning, he asks, "Are Yumi and Yuri all right?"

"Fast asleep," Kai says. "Yuri's still groggy from whatever they injected her with. But she's doing okay. Julia looked her over."

Haji nods.

He doesn't stir while Kai fetches out a bottle of scotch from the cabinet. Bootlegged Black Label. Bought by some daredevil God-knows-when, maturing alongside the spiderwebs all these years, just waiting to be plucked out.

Kai pours a finger's worth in two glasses, and nudges one Haji's way. "Drink up."

"You know I do not—"

" _Drink_."

Obediently, the Chevalier takes the glass. He doesn't slug it back; he takes a slow sip, holding it in his mouth, then swallows.

"Terrible."

"Yeah?"

"It has been opened, then resealed. You can tell by the taste."

"What're you now, a Booze Bible?" Kai takes a gulp, then cringes. "Christ—that _is_ terrible."

Haji sets his glass aside. His gaze returns to the window. The limning of moonlight across his profile takes Kai back to far-off years. School-nights at Omoro: Yumi and Yuri tucked up cozily in bed upstairs, the TV throwing a puddle of bluish light across the living-room, Mao camped out on the couch with her favorite soap operas, while Kai prepped meals for the next workday in the kitchen and Haji prepped daggers for the next mission on the workbench.

It'd been a weirdly happy time. Kai and Mao were a volatile but workable pair. Yumi and Yuri were doing well in school, with plenty of playmates, and when they came home their _Uncle Haji_ would sometimes be waiting on the porch, back from overseas missions with gifts in his cello case and strictly-censored stories to share at dinnertime.

The Chevalier seemed almost human then. With Yumi clambering into his lap and Yuri bestowing eskimo kisses, his expression would shade into something almost like softness.

Kai thought, with Saya back, that softness would expand. Melt away the guy's shell for good. Instead he's come to resemble his wartime self more than ever—a fact that is both strange and sad.

Kai sighs. "I guess the bad scotch isn't enough to make you see Saya."

Haji's face stays blank, but his shoulders tense a notch.

"I'm just sayin.' She's pretty wrecked, Haji. You should be upstairs with her. Dishing out some good old-fashioned lovin.'"

The rough not-sound Haji makes falls short of a laugh. "My love, I fear, espouses Diana more than Venus."

"Now you've lost me."

All humor drains away. "She does not want me near her."

"Say what?"

Haji falters. All at once he seems, not like an inscrutable immortal, but a busted machine that can't compute expect in bullet-points.

"I failed her, Kai." He shuts his eyes. "The night of her miscarriage. I should have been with her. But we …quarreled… and I took off. Near the city limits, I noticed two men tailing our party. Rather than alert David, and return to Saya, I followed them. The whole night, in a game of cat-and-mouse."

Kai shakes his head. "You were doing what we're all trained to."

"Was I?" It is two touches above a whisper. "Or was I being lured away?"

"Lured?"

"I had spotted them quickly. So quickly that I wondered whether they were reconnaissance or a distraction. So I stayed back, on watch for others."

Kai swallows. Nothing in Haji's behavior is surprising. Spotting one aberration makes amateurs complacent, closing their minds off to the possibility of others. Whereas searching for several is the purview of survivors.

"Those men were a decoy," Haji says. "Intended to draw me away—while that Chevalier got close to Saya."

"You couldn't have known—"

"I _should_ have. But the enemy counted on my blindness to anything but an attack."

Kai's jaw tightens.

It's a dirty trick, but exactly the kind to make a Queen vulnerable. By preying on her Chevalier's protective instincts. By leaving her weakened, disoriented, alone. What their enemies hadn't counted on was how quickly Haji had returned to Saya—or Kai arriving with two combat-trained Chevaliers and two even deadlier Queens.

They certainly hadn't counted on the natural disaster that was Saya herself.

Sighing, Kai runs a hand through his hair: it sticks up in spikes like in his teens.

"Bro," he says. "If you're expecting a punch, you won't get it."

"I deserve it."

"Does _she_ think so?"

Haji grunts, kind of.

Kai is quiet for a moment, swirling the scotch around in his chipped glass. "…Listen. You're both tired and grieving. You've just had—not one shock. You've had a whole smorgasbord of shocks. Losing the babies… that's gotta be the worst. But that's not a reason to go blaming yourself. You should be with Saya. It's what you both need."

Haji smiles. Too strange a smile, too old. "She does not need me."

"Don't start with that crap again."

"You did not see her in the hospital room. She was angry. Beyond angry. She said I had no right to call the children mine." He exhales. "I do not. The entire time she was pregnant, I did not think of the children at all. I _refused_ to. I clung to my duty instead. To Saya, and keeping her safe. What else could I do?" He meets Kai's eyes with an infinitude of exhaustion. "I have spent so long… too long… as her Chevalier. I do not know how to be a friend, or a partner. Much less a father."

Kai snorts. "No one knows how to be a father. You learn it as you go."

"That is hardly a strategy for success."

"Hey, it worked with Yumi and Yuri. Even if there were, um—"

"Fuck ups?" Haji supplies blandly.

Kai bites back a smile. It always cracks him up to hear Haji say 'Fuck.' He does it rarely, and never in front of mixed company, but every time it happens, it's like watching someone chug a Jägerbomb from a champagne flute.

"Sure," he says. "Everyone makes fuck ups. So long as they're not fatal."

The Chevalier's three-quarter profile doesn't alter. His silence is a heavy thing: not the supernatural waiting game he plays when he switches his brain off, but something humbled with leftover humanity.

Then—

"Did you ever…?"

"Huh?"

Haji swallows. "Did you ever regret breaking it off with Mao? Not having children with her?"

The question takes Kai by surprise. His brows twitch above his wide eyes. "Uh. Not really? I was mostly pissed we'd wasted each other's time. But the dad stuff never occurred to me. I didn't think I'd be good at it."

This prompts a disbelieving stare of Haji's own. "You? Not good at it?"

"Yeah, well. It was an insta-bond with Yumi and Yuri. Because of Riku. Because of what went down before they were born. I couldn't _not_ love 'em." He sighs. "I've never regretted it. Far as I'm concerned, they're _mine_. But if I'd been a father in other circumstances... ordinary ones... I dunno. I'm not saying I'd love my own kids less. But kids were never a piority for me, either."

"P _ri_ ority." Haji corrects automatically.

"Whatever."

Another stretch of silence, longer than the last. They both look out through the window: Kai sipping his drink, Haji empty-handed.

Then:

"Do you think you ever will? With Deidra?"

Kai nearly chokes on his scotch. " _Bro_."

"It is a fair question."

Kai makes a small noise that isn't confusion so much as consternation. Then he swallows, and wipes his mouth. "No way."

"No?"

Kai shakes his head.

He thinks of Dee on the frontline, fluid feints and fatal fury. Thinks of her after the hit-and-run in Mali, her sharpness receded into shapeless grief. He's one of the few people she'd confessed to about the miscarriage. That day, he'd felt a secret sympathy stir—a soft spot for deadly damsels that he'd never fully admitted, even to himself. It wasn't until her fiancé— _may he rot in peace_ —offed himself that Kai's wary attraction for Dee catalyzed into something stronger.

From being a girl to protect, she became an adult whose unswerving strength in the face of tragedy was worthy of respect.

Slowly, Kai says. "Dee decided kids weren't for her. Not now, or anytime soon."

"You do not find that strange?"

"Not really." He shrugs. "It's just a part of her personality. Like her weird dislike of tuna."

"What if she changed her mind?"

"About tuna?"

"About children."

"That ain't likely. Although—" His smile is a twisty goofball. "If she does, I'll be along for it. Whatever makes her happy."

Funny how that works. Whenever Kai remembers Mao, his private dysfunctions in the relationship are paramount. Whereas with Dee, his only purview is her happiness.

Then again, no two loves are alike. People change. They grow. They learn how to be good to themselves, and good to another. What was anomaly before becomes natural afterwards.

Maybe it's the same for Saya and Haji?

Kai has only ever had a surface view into their relationship: smooth, steady, unceasing. But in secrecy, he's understanding that their dynamic is complicated, and full of craziness. Not the crazy-cuteness of puppy-love, but the buried conflicts and latent neuroses of a decades' old marriage.

And the weird thing is, Kai finds it a relief. A relief that these so-called superhumans are as fucked up and fallible as anyone else. A relief that behind Saya's peppy cheer twist snakes of self-doubt. A relief that Haji's immaculate, unflappable, unknowable exterior cages a wary beast who is stumped by love, like every other man alive.

"You are smiling," Haji says.

"Only 'cause I can't pull off the broody vibe." Kai claps a hand on Haji's shoulder. "I'm reassured, though."

"Reassured?"

"That you're not some machine, or a fuckin' prince from a fairytale." Quieter, "Maybe that's the problem."

"Hm?"

"You're so used to being one or the other for Saya. Because of the war. You've never had a chance to know yourself. Even the _Philharmonic_ was just a segue for your thankless, stuck-up, anti-social ass."

Haji raises his brows. _Get to the point._

"I think you guys need to rewrite the script. Or—I dunno. Set it on fire. You and Saya fight good together. That's kinda your double act. But the rest of the stuff… the ordinary stuff… you're just getting in tune."

Haji frowns, rearranging these words into some semblance of logic. He murmurs, "…it is simpler…"

"What?"

The other man's eyes track slowly up the stairs, to the bedroom where Saya rests. His face holds the weary aspect Kai has seen on families of soldiers home from war: watching them to trying to pick up their lives and failing, then downspiraling into drink and derangement, with nothing to stop their momentum.

Nothing to do but hope for a miracle—or a mercy-kill.

"It is simpler for me," Haji says. "But Saya will also have to navigate those waters. Alone."

"You think she'll be okay?"

"I think," Haji releases a slow breath, "the way things are headed, she has no other choice."

* * *

Deep in dreams, Saya and Diva dance in a forest.

It is lushly green, sunlight angling through the treetops like rays falling through the nave of an old cathedral. She and Diva spin together in a faerie circle of tall grass, dark hair flying, fingers intertwined. Neither one leads or follows; they both move as one. Not merely in-sync, but _fused_. Both their faces are split into wide grins: the almost unearthly glow of happiness that only lasts in heartbeats and eyeblinks, a moment that is a precipice toward something better or worse, but which in itself is the irreplaceable pivot on which all possibility rests.

Grass, sparkling with loam, is soft beneath their bare feet. The dewy air raises goosebumps on their skins. But in this moment nothing else exists.

Just the sunlight, and the music of their laughter.

 _"Don't let go yet,"_ Diva giggles.

 _"I won't!"_ Saya says.

 _"You have to be careful! There are snakes in the grass!"_

 _"Snakes?"_

Saya lurches unsteadily. Diva catches her. Saya glances down and sees that she is bleeding, a red blossom seeping across her clothes. Blood slithers hotly down her thighs.

 _"They're gone,"_ she tells Diva, sadly. _"My daughters."_

 _"I know."_

 _"The snake. She tried to warn me."_

 _"She always does. Whenever he is near."_

 _"He?"_

Diva doesn't elaborate. Gently, she encircles Saya in her arms. Comforting her.

 _"You must be ready,"_ she says. _"If you're not, he'll kill my daughters too."_

The words loop through Saya's mind. She shuts her eyes, and rests her forehead against Diva's, feeling the hot drag of their shared pulse beneath the skin. Her sister smells of the air after a massacre; there is dried blood caught in the strands of her hair. Or is it Saya's?

 _"I promised to protect your daughters,"_ Saya whispers. _"I couldn't even protect mine."_

 _"Your daughters protected you instead."_ Diva palms her hair, smooths the curve of Saya's cheek. " _He was in your bed to sire his own."_

 _"That's so unfair. They became my shields. My sacrifices. They died before I could even hold them."_

 _"I died before I could hold mine."_ A bitter smile crosses Diva's sweet face. _"Fair trade."_

 _"A pound of flesh,"_ Saya says in final understanding. " _A drop of blood_."

Then Diva swoops forward at the Met's ruined stage, bringing her cutlass upwards in a silver orbit, flecks of blood flying off the metal. Saya dances inside her twin's lead, angling her body toward the blade, her muscles tensed for impact while her own sword arcs towards Diva's ribcage, her whole body flinging itself into the momentum like a freefall.

And, for a glorious split-second at the crescendo of the duel, they are together.

In the womb of life, and of death.

 _"That's the way, sister."_ Diva smiles, a tracery of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth _. "Share and share alike."_

And with that delirious shot of knowledge—

Saya jerks awake, the pillow wet with tears.

Groggy, she glances around. She is at the safe-house. Julia dozes on the sofa at the corner. The air holds an unpleasant heat, yet there is a cold shivery ache in Saya's bones. In a fugue state between consciousness and dreams, she keeps expecting to feel Diva next to her. Or _inside_ her, fizzing hotly in the shapes of her children.

There is nothing there. Just the over-bleached bedsheets, and a pillowcase rough as sackcloth against her cheek.

Careful not to disturb Julia, Saya limps out of her room, and into Sayumi and Sayuri's. They are fast asleep, their heads nearly on the same pillow. In that moment, they are impossible to distinguish from their baby selves: squeezably soft and alive. They don't wake when Saya climbs into bed with them. Their warmth under the blankets registers to something under her skin: a cold hole in the center of herself.

Slowly, her shakes ease: a quiet settles in the space where her daughters no longer are.

She shuts her eyes, fitting herself between the two Queens, and sleeps again.

* * *

CLASS CONFIDENTIAL

REASON: WR 5.2(e)

FOR RECIPIENT ONLY

-FORWARDED MESSAGE-

FROM: V** A******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

I'm told the three Queens escaped your hit in Karachi.

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: V** A******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Yes.

But when the men captured the younger Queen, they were able to retrieve something useful.

A vial of her blood.

* * *

FROM: V** A******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

It is undamaged?

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: V** A******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Yes.

They transferred the vial to a different vehicle before taking off with her.

* * *

FROM: V** A******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

A blood sample is not as promising as a live Queen.

The board will be unhappy.

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: V** A******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Tell them they are lucky.

A live Queen would be harder to restrain.

* * *

FROM: V** A******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

I will tell them. In _gentler_ terms.

Please have Carsten forward the blood sample to prof. Collins.

He will put it to good use.

* * *

The Oberoi Centre

Al A'amal St

57P7+76, Dubai

United Arab Emirates

When he was a Chevalier, a decade before his daughters were killed and his hatred unspooled endlessly, he'd shared baths with the Red Queen.

Tórir remembers the hangings, rich and gold-textured, pulled back from the chamber. He remembers the way the steam would waft from the water, like rime off the springtime grass. He remembers the Red Queen's smooth golden body beneath the bathwater, her head tipped back over the tub's curved rim, the islands of her breasts surfacing. She'd sigh when Tórir took them in his hands and kissed them. Laugh when he'd tip her head up to claim her mouth, the tang of fresh blood passing between them.

In those moments, her power inverted like a sea-anemone, she was pure softness—and purely his.

Tórir loved her for it.

But never for very long. Cruelty was too unadulterated a facet in both their natures. It manifested in blatant tells—the bitemarks in the tenderest places, the kisses the left welts, the crisscrossing of whips that faded only to be nightly refreshed. Then there were the more secret signs: the way each of them would show affection only to turn sadistic without warning. Once he gifted her a slave girl from a faraway realm. When the Queen treated the girl with fondness, Tórir ordered the wretch skinned alive, her bones made into daggers for his next battle. Once Tórir presented the Queen a necklace of jewels in a color she disliked. She smiled sweetly and used those jewels to strangle him until he gagged for mercy.

In time, it came to be a ritual between them. Her power to bestow joy, then snatch it away in the same breath.

 _The deadliest barbs are hidden in the softest touch,_ she once told him.

Centuries later, Tórir remembers the lessons.

He sprawls in the steamy heat of a bathtub. Sunk to the chin, his cellphone in one dripping hand. Once satisfied with Van's response, he sets the phone aside.

Honey-colored sunlight pours from the frosted-glass window of the hotel. The hi-tech speakers serenade the airwaves with the _Fantaisie Impromptu._ His accommodations at Dubai's Oboroi penthouse are posh: a monotone wonderland of gold and cream.

Yet restlessness stirs at every glance. The space's sumptuous silence has an inertia; it swallows his mind in dark conjurings of memory. The Red Queen, his brothers, his daughters. The glittering geometry of the chandeliers make his eyes buzz with déjà vu (like the Red Queen's jewels). The patterned tiles are flecked with distracting gold (like the Red Queen's hangings). The sigil of the hotel ribboning in pompous flourish across the towels (like the Red Queen's banners).

Memory, everywhere Tórir looks.

It begs for vanquishment, and Tórir will have it.

 _Saya._

Like an alchemist's philter, his mood transmutes from choleric to craven.

In her magic and mysterious way, she began from her mother, the Blue Queen. Her name, too, is the fateful imprint of her life-giver.

Yet Tórir has ceased to make the connection. Her resemblance to Jokill was already incidental. But now, she has even begun eclipsing the Red Queen, her protean prototype. The facts are soapy flotsam scudding the edges of the tub; a slosh of water and they are gone.

All that matters is _Saya_ , and his unimpeded trajectory to seizing her.

It's what channeled his focus throughout the mission. Its failure isn't a heartache, but an enticement. To be bolder, braver, _brutal_. He'd underestimated her in battle. But next time, he will keep her in sight the whole way as he rips her allies apart. Red Shield. Her friends and family. Her Chevalier. It will be a bloodbath beyond anything she's experienced.

Proof of his dominion over her—and over her bloodline itself.

Stretching in the tub, Tórir shuts his eyes and takes himself back to that night. To Karachi's gritty night-heat. To the air-conditioned chill of Saya's bedroom. To the beauty of her recumbent body in his arms. And she was his, she was all his, her bed a stage for siring little Queens.

Not the superfluous chaff she already carried. That would never do. Why spoil his future empire with Haji's subpar seed?

So he disposed of it, as rubbish is disposed of.

 _Stronger stock will follow soon._

Tórir smiles, wrapping his fist around his stirring erection. His mind covets the details of her. The moments have become perfect squares of a filmographer's reel, connected end-to-end in a sequence of secrecy. The purest heat she'd exuded from her pores. The glossy spill of her dark hair across a white pillowcase. The sooty fringe of her fluttering eyelashes. The constellation of tiny moles along her tailbone: three dark, two red. The dainty ripeness of her breasts with their turned-in pink nipples. The comfortable curve of belly that gave way to soft dark floss and the softer heat between her thighs.

He could have taken her then. How sweet it could've been: like snatching a ripe plum from the royal orchard.

Except that isn't how he wants her. Not drowsing and unawares. He wants her as she'd been with Haji, glimpsed from the villa's window—her excitement perfuming the air into a wild concupiscence of blue roses.

 _No._

 _More._

He wants her as he'd wanted the Red Queen, her strength inverted like a sea-anemone, so she is pure submission—and purely his.

She will belong to him.

Tórir's smile darkens. Once his reign begins, the annals will record it exactly so. Tell the story of the Queen he seduced instead of slaying, opening her up to her marrow, then shaping her into the deadliest of weapons. A seduction that holds the craftiness of calligraphy: each blood-soaked tracery an illustration of his triumph.

 _Be ready when we next meet, Saya._

 _Be ready to lose everything._

Her loss, his sizable gain.

He plans to recapture the joys of fatherhood, once she is under his spell.

Tórir softens with the prospect of the daydream made flesh. Perhaps he will name their first daughters Sváva and Suffía. Perhaps he will sing to them—while their mother slaughters thousands at his command.

 _Such a future will be worth singing for._

* * *

 _No singing for you,_ _Tórir. Now or ever._

 _Critiques, comments and questions can be directed to the little review thingy down below! Sharing is caring :)_


	35. Tombstoning

_Huzzah! :D_

 _Ending my hiatus early, because I missed you guys and am eager to resume updating this fic! Picking up where we left off at the beginning of Act III, with Saya and the saddening shambles that is her life. Expect a few epiphanies and ugly convos before she and Haji finally patch things up. Mild smut is imminent! Meanwhile, Tórir is up to no good as usual, and an old face makes a reappearance..._

 _Let me know y'all's thoughts, and I hope the chapter is up to shippy, plotty, porny snuff!_

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Fall passes in a trance of sunlit sine waves and shadows. Not unreal, exactly, but Saya feels untethered from her life.

The only constant is the _zing_ of adrenaline in her veins.

In Okinawa, recollections of the past, uncertainties of the future, zigzag through her like lightning. Jerk her into cold sweat in the midst of sleep, food, conversation. Saryuri, her glowy expectant-mother's smile a reminder of Saya's own personal fiasco. Kai, who keeps up a steady stream of barbecues and family outings with her, always watching her with worried eyes, as if afraid she might be lost. Joel, his presence something she can only cherish in retrospect. August, filling his absence at Red Shield's helm, a dynamic mover-and-shaker and an unexpectedly loyal friend. The hellscape of Karachi: so many dead in the crossfire of disaster, or by her own hand. The babies, their wasted possibility a grief that none of her fighting-skills are proof against, their aftermath a prison of sympathetic _I'm sorry's_ and _Get plenty of rest_ 's that trap her between four walls of self-loathing.

And Diva.

Who is always at the edges of Saya's life, hazy, untraceable, giving her cruel day-dreams and strings of bad nights.

Who is not just in Saya's thoughts. She is _there_. They have conversations.

Conversations about the past. Conversations about the future. Conversations about Yuri's babies, about the impossibility and possibility of her own, of the choice between ruin and salvation.

She finally admits it. Life in a world without Diva is a cheat. She wants her sister's company. Wants to rage at her, cry for her, beg her forgiveness. Some days it whips up her loneliness to fever pitch; no one can dispel it, not even Haji.

 _Especially_ not Haji.

Since the miscarriage, there is a psychic block between them. He is still caring and courteous, keeping close watch over her, keeping her fed on meals and blood, gently prompting her to change the bedsheets, brush her hair, shower. But she no longer lets him touch her. He's made one or two oblique attempts at peacemaking through physicality. Each time, she's rebuffed him.

Sex and love are at their lowest ebb. She knows a part of him is grieving too—but she can't feel it. He might as well be a stranger, and she doesn't owe strangers her confidences or her self. Doesn't want to do anything but keep apart, and mourn for her loss—of family, of a fresh start.

Of a way to preserve, with those lost babies, some innocent remnant of Diva.

But life swoops on too fast.

Sayumi and Sayuri are a blessing. They take to bursting weekly into the villa on a cloud of chatter and perfume, bringing with them fresh-baked brownies and plans for new adventures. They haul off Saya to yoga classes, to drag races, to boxing matches. They style her hair in chic new updos, swathe her in the latest fast-fashions, get her VIP passes to nightclubs and _Kumi odori_ plays.

In their company, she watches the colorful psychedelia of _Shushin Kaneiri_ for the first time. Sandwiched between them on lazy afternoons in Memorial Park, she reads out loud from Rumi's _In the Arms of the Beloved_ , smiling bitterly at the lines, " _In the driest whitest stretch/of pain's infinite desert/I lost my sanity/and found this rose."_

The activities keep her absorbed, sweeping her across the surface of life. The girls take delight in opening up every facet of her sensorium—introducing their Auntie to good Okinawan beer, to the bakeries with the best yam tarts, to the best dirt tracks to race their motorbikes, and to the exhilarating art of tombstoning—leaping off the steep cliffs at Maeda Point and right into the frothing sea below: legs-first, arms crossed over the chest as if tipped out of a coffin.

It takes weeks before Saya convinces them to let her try it. Late at night, on a girls'-only-cruise so Kai and Haji won't interfere, the three of them hop into Saya's car, and drive up along Route 58 to the highway leading to Cape Maeda.

Overhead, the full moon sails across the hazy smear of city-lights. Saya takes deep breaths of the late-summer air—gasoline and _benjo_ ditches, dying plumeria and the brine of the ocean. Yuri is in the backseat, humming softly as the wind gusts through the rolled-down windows. In front, Yumi fiddles with the radio and pulls up _Bad Moon Rising_ by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

" _I feeeaaaar the rivers overflooooowiiiiing_ ," she croons in raspy-edged soprano. " _I heaaaar the voice of raaaaage and ruuuuiiiiiiin_."

At the wheel, Saya laughs. It's a weird feeling, like the ache of stretching atrophied muscles. She can see their bodies reflected in the curvature of the windscreen. But in the half-light of the moon and streetlamps, it isn't three of them, but four.

Four Queens.

One complete family.

The effect is so enthralling that she nearly reaches to touch the blue-eyed face trapped in the glass.

 _Diva..._

"Yo, Saya! That's our exit!"

"What— _oh_!"

She pulls off the freeway, and in a few moments they are cruising through an open concrete parking lot, to where a steep stone stairway cuts through the heavy tangle of palm fronds and prickerbushes toward the glittering stretch of the sea.

A sign reads that the beachhead is closed due _to Inclement Weather_.

Saya scoffs—dismissal, disdain—before tugging the twins' arms.

"Let's go."

"But Auntie Saya—"

" _C'mon_!"

Fifteen minutes later, she is crouched alone on a stump of rocks over the churning water. Moonlight limns her nude body, the wind stroking goosebumps across her skin. The sea below is black, unseen except for the thundering boom of the surf. The currents are at their wildest this season; the high drop turns the basin into a bottomless mouth of doom.

Death so close she can almost taste it.

Except, when she leaps, it is _life_ she is tasting, at its highest ambit and brightest definition.

Life, as Diva always wanted to live it.

She lands without sound, a darker shape against the darkness. Surfaces fifty yards from where she'd dropped, in a ripcurl that tries to drag her into the ocean. She doesn't struggle; that isn't the point. Enduring it is.

So she lets herself sink, the temperature gone from icy to shock-hot, seeping a numb lassitude into her muscles. Her lungs are emptied, and so is her mind, disconnected bubbles of memory floating by. Dad's laughter and the sizzle of the frying pan in Omoro's kitchen. The ribboning blueness of the sky in the breathless moments between a high jump. The sticky goodness of boiled rice in her _bento_ , and Kai's solid warmth on the motorbike. Riku tugging puppylike at her arm, coaxing her to play catchball at the park. The rancid heat of Vietnam and bodies fallen across blood-stained elephant grass. The shocking blue of Diva's eyes beneath the Met's stage-lights, her skin flaking off like old plaster.

And Haji, kneeling to take the sword from her hands. They kiss, and heat sparks between them, a sweetness that isn't like despair but resurrection.

 _"Saya... Please live on."_

Her eyes snap open.

The memory jolts her to the core, robbing her of everything but its immediacy.

She is caught in zigzagging undercurrents, her hair billowing around her face. But the inertia is gone; she kicks like crazy to fight it off. Struggling, choking on seawater, her muscles in knots as she claws her way topside.

Breaking free is like escaping from her cocoon after hibernation: a surface resistance, a tearing, a scattering of droplets. She crests to the surface on a wild gulp of air. Above, the stars are in hallucinatory alignment, a ghostly nimbus around the eye of the moon.

At the beach-head, Sayumi and Sayuri go from breath-held horror to whooping joy. They cheer her on as she swims toward the shore, their voices fading in and out between the vertiginous gravity of the waves.

Saya is half-shocky when she flops ashore, lips gone blue and teeth chattering. But the twins tell her afterward that she's never looked so serene.

When they bundle her up and get her home, Kai is _furious_. He howls at the shamefaced girls that've lost their goddamn minds, letting her try something so dangerous—especially with the monsoons rolling in.

" _Newsflash: Chiropterans can drown_!" he roars. " _Are you trying to get her_ _killed_?"

Haji is upset too. But not in a way that manifests until he and Saya are alone in the villa. She sits at the kitchen table, wrapped in a warm blanket, sipping cocoa with tiny marshmallows. Watching Haji's body-language from the corner of her eye as he clears the table—a measured bearing that seems almost mechanical, each movement a precise calibration that hides the short-circuiting of anger beneath.

Until their eyes meet. Suddenly the silence—screwed in too tight— _explodes_.

They go all-out that night. Skirting a good handful of smaller spats to leap straight into the clash of the titans—except under the carnage of raging, rationalizing, angst and anguish, it is a mutual meltdown.

What starts it?

Haji's voice, terse and toneless, asking: "Do you truly wish to die?"

Just six words. Yet they are enough to send her temper flaring, match to tinder. Enough for her to dash the mug against the wall where it shatters with a dark splash, the same way her own control shatters on a _scream_ that she is sick of being treated like an invalid, a child who doesn't know her mind, a lunatic to be locked away—when all that does it take her further from the life she wants to have, consigning her to the same fate as Diva.

Haji tries to reason with her. But she is in attack-mode, going for the jugular, hurling ugly epithets that will make her cringe afterward. Accusing him of being glad for the miscarriage, for the excuse to keep treating her like a basket case, a broken doll who is not even rent-to-own, cursing his hovering and his hang-ups and his whole goddamn life.

"All you do anymore is keep me locked up!" she screams.

The words make their impact on his face with palpable shock. Worse than that—hurt.

"Saya—"

"Maybe you just get me a leash and collar—not like I'm going anywhere—or like my life is—"

"Please—that is not true—"

" _Isn't it_?" Her eyes go hot with tears. Suddenly, she feels like a child, stranded on a street she was forbidden to cross, numb with horror as huge cars whiz all around her. "I'm already deadweight. I can't give you a proper relationship, children, a home—anything a normal person would want!"

Haji sidles closer, a gentle reproach. "Please do not start that again."

"Oh? So I can't even say my _mind_ now?!" Hands balling into fists. "I'm already hallway out of my mind. Halfway out of life. Why don't I just make things easier for both of us and—"

She doesn't get a chance to finish.

Crossing the space, he's snatched her up into his embrace. The force of it knocks the breath from her. She struggles wildly in his arms, her fists like mortar-shelling bouncing off his chest. Tries to form words, to howl at how unfair it is, her life going nowhere, her relationships finite, her sanity always in question, her every choice scrutinized, her own body a traitor against what her heart clutched at so dearly—except she can't breathe through her sobs.

And when Haji meets his eyes, he looks so near to spilling over himself—torment, love, loss, the full beam of decades shining on her—that it is hard not to flinch.

"Just tell me what to do," he says, almost begging. " _Anything_ , Saya. You know I will do it."

"Haji—"

"Only— _please_ —do not make yourself suffer for suffering's sake. Just to recompense for—"

"For what?"

He finishes in a near-whisper: "For living when Diva didn't."

She breaks down weeping, and sinks to the floor. When he tries to touch her, she shoves him away.

There seems no way to explain that it is—and _isn't_ —about Diva. No way to make her family understand that she doesn't know how to be a person who isn't in anguish every moment without her twin to serve as her Ruben-vase opposite, her mirror, her missing piece.

Without her, she is split in half—an abraded, half-empty shadow.

But it is about more than that, too. It is about redefining her limits in Diva's absence. In laying down roots—of family, friends, love, obligations—that don't lock her down in their orbit, but are her safeguards as she moves on.

Otherwise there can _be_ no moving on. No being, or becoming.

In the morning, as the soft blue half-light spreads dreamily over everything, she tiptoes to Haji's room. Soap-squeaky and minty-fresh. Opens the door without knocking. He is curled on his side in bed, reading a book in the dim golden lampglow that would wreck any but a Chevalier's eyesight. She's caught him in a rare state: not in dishabille but elegant disarray. Coat off, feet bare, white button-down shirt falling untucked from dark trousers.

He sits up when she comes in, startled. First time in weeks since she's done so. The immaculate neatness of his room makes her realize what a gloomy hovel hers has become. The very air there seems opiated: she can't stand it any longer without suffocating.

Can't stand, either, keeping away from _him_.

"I'm sorry."

There is a terror in saying those words. In knowing she isn't the Queen right now, nor he her supplicant. They are just two people, wading the unsteady waters of their relationship.

Then Haji says, "It doesn't matter, Saya."

"It does! I overreacted. I said—things I shouldn't have."

"Things that you felt to be true."

"No—!" _Yes_. "It's hard to explain."

"You can try."

The tenderness in his gaze is hard to bear. He always says this. Even when she is cursed, and crazy, and cruel, he never abandons her, never loses hope. Always takes the highs and lows of her life in stride, with clear-eyed patience and a quiet core of love.

She needs to love him, as he deserves, in return.

"W-We'll talk," she says. "I promise. After..."

"After?"

Lip bit, she tries to find the words. But when their eyes meet, he understands.

He lets her crawl into bed, and into his circling arms. Lets her curl under the sheets that are as cool and silky as his kisses, her tears sluicing between their mouths.

They make love, gently, lying side by side, her thigh notched over his hip. Another first since her miscarriage. She is awkward at first, her body caught in a clammy trap of tension. But each kiss thaws the cold inside her, breaking open what was locked up tight. Haji's tongue is cool in her mouth, deliciously cool. It melts her misgivings before they bloom, barely a whisper rising each time, no syllables, just the shaky shadow of sighs. He nuzzles her jaw, her throat. He rubs his cheek against her breasts and suckles her nipples, faint rings of teeth and a silky slither of tongue until her breaths twist into ragged little sobs.

And then he is coaxing her leg up higher with a cool clasp under the knee, his body sliding and seeking, then working himself in, attuned to her sounds and the way her eyes glaze over and flutter shut, her own ready slickness turning the ache of unexpected pain inside-out into a sweet torment of pleasure.

Tears catch blurrily at the edges of her lashes. Haji kisses them away, cradling the kitten-curl of her body against his until her quivers fade. His own eyes dream pensively into hers, as he strokes her hair and murmurs her name, calling her mysterious words that have never blossomed from him before, riding the gusts of wild helpless want that pass between their rocking bodies. _Ves'tacha, volchitsa, ma raison de vivre_ —words that make her shiver and sigh, a drunken sweetness climbing up her spine until her skin hums with heat, his mouth and hands and body working her until she forgets her tears, forgets even her self.

She falls apart in sobbing tremors that rise straight from her core and break to the surface in spasm after spasm. Haji's own groan vibrates through her, his body caught in a beautiful web of agony, blue eyes hooked painfully on hers.

" _Saya_."

The sensory shock reminds her of tombstoning. A hot teardrop of life blown apart to leave her floating on a sea of calm.

Afterward, their heads on the same pillow, she whispers: "I don't want to die."

"Saya—"

"I mean it. Whatever you think, I didn't go to Maeda Point because of ... that."

"What then?"

"I can't explain. Just... remember what you said, when we first started out? How I can't force becoming into being, unless the time is right?"

He nods, mutely, eyes fixed on hers.

She drops her own gaze, burrowing into him to cover for the rawness behind her words. "That's what I want. To become. Something. _Anything_. Someone more than I was before."

"Saya—"

"I've been holding myself back since the war. Playing it... not safe, but halfway. I can't do that forever."

Haji swallows audibly. "It is not a matter of safe _or_ halfway, Saya. It is about your recovery. After what happened in Karachi, I cannot sit by if—" He stops, his arm tightening around her. The reminder of their loss darkens his eyes. "If you are hurt again, I will not sit by."

"I won't get hurt, Haji. You have to let me work through this alone."

Brooding, he kisses her brow. "How can I? I swore, when we began, to never let you suffer alone."

"You also swore to give me time."

This lays between them: a rebuke. He says nothing, but she can feel him holding his breath.

Quietly: "I'm strong, Haji."

"I know." In his solemn tone, she hears: _You always have been._

She nestles her cheek against his chest, eyes slipping shut. "Then trust me to handle this."

" 'This'?"

"My life. My self. Whatever they are now."

Haji says nothing. But she feels his pulse trip. Realizes, with a start, that he truly is afraid. Not because he doesn't trust her to be strong—but because he doesn't trust himself not to chase after her, protect her. To be her Chevalier, because being her partner is still too novel and precarious.

"What do you plan to do?" he asks.

"Nothing dangerous. I swear. But... I want space to myself. To go where I want. Do what I want. To start my own life." She sighs. "I can't give you a normal life. But I can at least give you a better version of _me_. I owe you that much. I owe _myself_ that much."

She can feel Haji's thoughts tick-tocking away. Feel him gathering himself: to interrogate, negotiate. Thinks, wryly, that he truly did miss his calling as a counselor—always determined to be impartial, to not pathologize.

To give her what she needs.

But what she _needs_ is his agreement. Needs him—and her family—to shed their emotional bubblewrap. She'd asked him, when they started out, that she wanted them to be equals. But that will never happen if he keeps placing himself at her disposal, a caretaker to a half-mad Queen.

If they continue in that vein, their relationship will become sour, septic. They will be no different from Diva and her Chevaliers.

Then Haji exhales, a subtle but eloquent slump of shoulders. "...All right."

"Really?"

"Yes." Gathering her closer, he kisses her hair. "I promised myself I would keep you safe, after your Long Sleep. But I fear I became swept up in the contingencies. In making certain you were not harmed, I lost sight of _you_."

"You didn't—"

"I did. Ssh." He rests his forehead against hers. "It will be all right. I am so sorry, but I promise it will be all right. I will do better. For you, with you—however you want."

"Haji..."

"Do what you need to, Saya." The blue orbits of his eyes are dark with an honesty that sends chills through her. "I will always be here. That way when you go live your life, you will have a home to come back to."

Gratitude suffuses her. Somehow, she'd expected refusal. But Haji has never denied her anything. Since their affair, they've had towering fights, blistering silences. But it hits her that however hypervigilant his efforts, he hasn't been fighting with her, but _for_ her. Against her inner-conflict, her strangeness. He's been stubborn as often as he's been patient. He's never made giving up the least bit easy.

But he's never given up on _her_ , either. He's watched her shatter, over and over, and caught her each time she fell.

Tears prick the corners of her eyes. Blinking wetly, she nestles closer. "I'm sorry about before, too. For hitting you. For pushing you away. For what I told you in Karachi—"

"Ssh. We do not have to talk about that."

"No. I-I _want_ to. I felt like I was being punished, for daring to want something more than death. So I punished you too."

"You had endured enough loss to warrant a breakdown, Saya. You needed space to heal."

"That doesn't undo what I did. Don't pretend it does."

She closes her eyes for just a moment, and in her mind inhabits the haphazard blur of the early days since her Awakening: her loneliness and loss, her physical stirrings which were first eased by sex, before it became just another stopgap, her terror at the finiteness of hers and Haji's relationship, her yearnings for sameness, solidity, stability.

It isn't Haji's fault. It is the nature of woman he's chosen to love. A woman who has sustained herself on a _raison d'etre_ , rather than the joys of ordinariness. A woman who has never learned to live for the sake of herself, her future, the simple pleasures of life.

A woman not too different from him.

She opens her eyes, pupils capturing the colors of the stained-glass window, their optical echoes on the rumpled sheets and the salt-sparkling smoothness of Haji's skin: a kaleidoscope of her present.

"We're too alike," she whispers. "The war was a huge ball-and-chain that we shaped ourselves around. Without it, we're not sure how to be regular people. We try, and it's sweet for a while. But if something goes wrong, we default to being fighters. Like that's all we know how to be."

Haji's palm splays across her belly, an idle up-and-down like a cello bow. "We can learn to be different, Saya."

"Or unlearn." She covers his palm with hers, fingers knitting together. "I was afraid of you beating me to normalcy. You had it all: a career, a network, a place. I felt like I was scrambling to catch up with you. It didn't occur to me that you were suffering too. I'm sorry."

He answers with an eloquent squeeze. _It's already forgiven._ She can feel his pulse, the slow thub of it. Knows he can feel hers, too—a tactile conversation that transcends words.

He whispers, "In Karachi, when I first understood what had happened, I was so angry. At myself. At everything. Here was one thing that could have made you happier—you seemed to want it so much. But it slipped away before I had caught up with how much _I_ wanted it as well."

"You mourned."

"Yes. But I mourned for you more."

This makes her throat burn. Tipping her head, she kisses his chin—apology, affection. Whispers, "I almost killed Nathan when he said I should try again."

"So did I."

"But afterward, when you were caught in that explosion, I thought..."

"Hm?"

For a moment her emotions nearly break loose. She kisses him, to buy time. But he puts her back gently, regarding her out of those mild querying eyes. "You thought what?"

Tears boil up hotly. "If I lost you—it would be a thousand times worse than losing the babies. I don't know if that makes me a bad person… but I can't pretend either. I can fight without you at my side. But I'd never be _happy_. The only time I'm ever at home is with—"

" _Sssh_."

He takes her face in both hands, soft anguished kisses around the clock of her face before their mouths catch, breaths hitching, need flaring. She lures him closer, his body a heavy silky comforter, cool on hot, as if soothing a fever. Because no matter how uncannily her orientation spins, having him close keeps her nourished.

Keeps her _sane_.

The lovemaking is different this time. Slow, scary, throttlingly sweet. It's as if she's breaking to pieces for him: a total collapse of atoms. At the window, the drowsy blue edge of dawn melts into gold. The linen sheets are like spun-glass on her skin. The heavy twist of Haji's body is cooler and rougher, curved over her, around her, _inside_ her—a long, snaky, sublime dance that begins with soft hitching cries and ends on hard shocks of shredded muscle-networks and broken sobs.

Even her orgasm is different: soft fractals of delirium that crack her open, filling her with heat and light.

Afterward, Haji kiss-kiss-kisses her, until she doesn't feel so fragile in her own skin. Each touch soaks into her like the spreading golden sunlight at the window. Something nearly as essential.

And then, as the inevitable shadow of her happiness, there is grief. The first time she'd kissed Haji, the first time she'd had an orgasm with him, the first time she'd learnt she was pregnant. And now, her first time understanding what is truly meant by being in the arms of someone you love. All the joys Diva will never experience, because of what was robbed from her.

Tears spill again. She shivers, and tries to smile.

"I-I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I can't seem to shake the habit of crying… whenever we do this."

Haji strokes the loose curl of his fingers across her cheek. His eyes glisten, arrestingly soft.

"I like that you do," he whispers.

"You like that I cry?"

"I like that you let yourself be honest with me." He kisses the wet tracks on her cheeks. "You wear such a brave front in battle, Saya. But here... it is safe if you let go. If both of us do."

She tries a tiny ten-watt smile. "You want to—break my armor?"

"I want to take care of what is beneath." Gentler, "Tell me truthfully. Do you feel ready?"

"For what?"

"Trying for children again?"

"I…" Saya is stymied for a response. She tries to search inside herself for words. "I thought I was. Now I'm not sure. I wanted it against all reason. But you were right. All my reasons... were the wrong ones."

"Saya—"

"I felt so sad and aimless after my Awakening. I guess I hoped those babies would help bring me back to life." _Or repay for Diva's life. It felt like the same thing._ She swallows. "Except I need to start with myself. I know you've been saying that all along, but I didn't hear it. I couldn't make myself."

"It is all right, Saya."

"It's really not." A wavery sigh. "We need to try harder. We're good at battling side-by-side. We trust each other there. And we trust each other here. In bed. But we've gotten into the habit of thinking touching is the same as talking in other ways. I want us to do better."

He gives her another long speaking squeeze. _We will._

Then he speaks for real, his jaw moving against her temple, his voice going through her in a dark curl of warmth. "I wanted to tell you before. Not about what happened in Karachi. Before that. I was happy you were pregnant… and yet I stayed at an arm's length. Because—"

"Because?"

He lets off a hollow exhale. "I was afraid."

"About me?"

"About something else." His words are like stormy, rain-laden weather. "Do you believe in... hauntings?"

She stills.

"Have you ever thought of it? Haunted people?"

"People?" She draws back, a little, to study him. His expression is clouded with an emotion she can't parse. "Haji, what do you mean?"

" _Bavalengro_."

The word isn't French but Bugurdži. She doesn't know its meaning. "I-I don't understand—"

Haji drops his gaze. He reminds her of a boy sheepishly sharing a story he's outgrown, like Père Noël or Le Croque-Mitaine. " _Bavalengro._ A wind-thing. It was a Romani _chib_ for ghost where I grew up."

"Ghost?" All at once her scalp is prickling.

"My grandmother told stories about them. Foolish superstitions, I always thought. And yet—" He stops. "Forgive me. I should not share this."

"Sssh." She lifts a hand to stroke his cheekbone. "You think… what? I'm haunted?"

"I think you have been since your Awakening."

She feels a spasm of disquiet. He says it gently, almost apologetically. Yet the words hit a deeply-hidden truth inside her. She's forgotten how uncannily perceptive Haji can be. He isn't superstitious by any stretch of the imagination. But intuition? He has that in spades.

She takes a deep breath. Why is it so impossible, sharing the truth? "You could be right."

"Saya…"

"I promised we'd talk, didn't I? Once we were in Okinawa." She burrows closer. "You have to promise, too."

"Promise what?"

"You'll try to believe what I say."

He nods, carefully.

Saya's voice wavers as she begins. But Haji's steady gaze doesn't change, and bit by bit she finds her words strengthening. His arm is a comforting weight across her body; she clutches at it, to keep from tripping into the black-hole of disorientation. She tells him about the dreams. The snakes. The conversation with the _Yuta_. She tells him about her flashback on the high-dive at the Zoo, and the sensation afterward of Diva's spirit slithering into her womb—not a resurrection but a gatekeeper guarding a tribute of flesh and blood. Tells him about her sister's final warning, to be ready against _him_. The Chevalier who killed her daughters. Despite her kneejerk habit for reticence, it feels good, _essential_ , to unburden herself.

When she is finished, Haji looks like a man under a surface of ice. Freezing in increments. "Saya… Dear God."

"You think I'm crazy, right?"

He shakes his head. "I did not realize—"

"What?"

He stops as if to orient his scattershot impulses. "All this time—why did you kept such a terrible thing to yourself?"

"I wasn't sure you'd believe me." The backs of her eyes fizz, something more like acid than tears. "Maybe you'd think I was unhinged."

Haji swallows hard. When he speaks, there is a sticky reluctance in his voice, but no distrust. She senses there are a thousand-and-one questions thronging his brain. But as always, he focuses on the most pertinent and pragmatic. "The snakes. You see them everytime that Chevalier is nearby?"

"I think so. The _Yuta_ … she said it was a warning."

"A warning from Diva?"

"Or the Queens of the past."

Shock surfaces in Haji's expression—but no skepticism. While reluctant to fully embrace the truth, she is grateful he isn't discarding it either. In a way, ready acceptance would be worse, because it would mean he is biding his time, assuming an armor of patience while ticking away on the inside with plans for padded cells.

Quietly, he says. "There is no doubt you are demonstrating signs of posttraumatic stress. As for the rest… Diva's presence, the split between yourself and her… It is not something I have encountered before. None of Red Shield's files mention such an abnormality. It could be as simple as dissociative identity sparked by trauma. Or—" He doesn't break his grip, or his gaze. "Or something else. There is so much about ourselves we do not know."

"You believe me?"

He nods.

"I know… it's hard. To accept such a strange thing."

"We will find answers. One way or another." He considers her gravely. "Whether this is possession or inherited memory, I cannot say. But I promise you will not endure it alone."

Saya's throat tightens, and gratitude heats her skin, a flame that burns more purely each time it is sated. As if his love isn't a comfort but a cure.

Because it is.

"We'll find answers," she repeats. "Right now I just want to be with you. In the moment. That's what I need."

"Anything you wish, Saya. If you want to discuss it later, we will talk about it. Try to get to the bottom of it." A gleam flits across his eyes: loss, wistfulness. "I was—so terrified and thrilled when I learned we might have a family. Losing that—there was no worse feeling in the world. But it would be far worse if I lost _you_. For now, all I want to focus on is you. Giving you whatever you need."

Tears rush to her eyes again—they feel so ready to overflow these days. She'd felt peculiarly alone when they began their relationship. But he is here now, as always. Enclosing her in his blue gaze, so something lights her up from the inside, and she feels achingly, perfectly alive.

Tombstoning? A shoddy substitute.

"Haji?"

"Yes?"

"There's ...something I need right now."

He gives her that familiar three-degree head-tilt: _Anything_.

She smiles: half-lidded, languid, luminous. Tumbles him on to his back, and swoops in for kisses—a hundred kisses for a century's suffering, and a hundred more just _because_.

Each kiss telling its own story.

* * *

No. 1號, Section 3

Zhongxiao East Road

Da'an District 106

Taipei City, Taiwan

 _A place for everything, and everything in its place._

A dictum as useful in the laboratory as out of it. Sometimes, Dr. Aston Collins imagines the world that way. A gridwork of food, fuel, recreation, rest, work, waste. Human beings? No different. A collection of substances: gossip, spite, pettiness, envy. Out of some spills useful information. Out of others, what passes for companionship. But the sum total of their parts is predictable.

Disposable.

 _The only everlastingness is in our work._

Coffee in hand, Collins sits at his workbench. His laboratory, appointed by IBM-UAWA, is spartan but sleek, everything up-to-date. He appreciates the high standards—and deep pockets—of the Taipei branch. Following his fallout with Red Shield, he's come to regard the city as a sanctuary. And himself: a species of intellectual exilé. His works have stopped circulating among the _crème de la crème_ of the scientific community. Following a costly divorce, his relationship with his family is minimal. Few friends, and those who exist know better than to touch upon the subject of his disgrace.

Still, there are days when Collins remembers his relinquished ( _stolen_ ) status with a heavy dose of bitterness. Other days, with a rage as coldly primordial as a blizzard.

For the most part, he stays busy. His new work is engaging, if not exhilarating. He's been given a comfortable residence in Da'an, a well-to-do neighborhood favored by expats. His commute to the laboratory is minimal; he spends most of his time there anyway. The staff are on-call when needed. When not, they melt away like obsequious servants.

It's how Collins prefers it. The only sound he can tolerate during work is the insectile buzz of the overhead lights.

And the tinny screams of his test subjects.

Before him, a bank of hi-tech monitors flash a collection of images. Subjects in cells, sobbing and pacing. Subjects strapped to tables, spewing gobs of blood. Subjects in the grip of hysteria, bashing their heads against walls. Subjects beyond recall, sitting in corners and emitting a constant, skin-crawling, " _Aaaaaaaaaaaaah."_

Each one a collection of information: useful, unpredictable.

Each one disposable, once their role is fulfilled.

"Dr. Collins?"

The door clicks open. Collins bristles at the interruption. "What is it?"

The gripe dies in his throat. His visitor fills the doorway. Male, white, early twenties. His suit is a well-cut black bespoke. Beneath, his physique is an unflexing hardness of muscle. Red hair sweeps like a mane across his skull; his features are classically sculpted into handsome insolence. Most unusual are the eyes. They are heterochromic, flat with concentration and yet strangely feral. The energy pulsing off him is like nothing Collins has experienced: pure dynamism.

Then he remembers another creature with the same energy.

 _Not one creature._

 _Two_.

For the first, the strength was an exigency. For the second, it was a sublime state of being.

 _Saya and Diva._

Collins rises from his seat. "You must be… Tórir."

"I am."

They shake hands. Tórir's palm is cool and tough; it is like touching the scales of a python. The strength coursing beneath the skin is the same: every fiber readied to strike.

"It is a pleasure," Tórir says. "I have heard a great deal about you from Carsten."

"As have I."

An ancestral Chevalier, according to Carsten. In stasis for thousands of years. Assimilated in a matter of months. A creature with history, drive, charisma.

A treasure box of information.

 _If IMB-UAWA would let me examine him…_

Tórir raises a brow. "Is there something on my face?"

Collins blinks, and shakes his head. "Not at all."

Tórir smiles. A profoundly unsettling smile. As if his mismatched eyes have slithered into Collins' brain, licking up the flavor of his thoughts.

Collins' rational mind rejects the notion. _Ridiculous._

"I didn't realize you were in Taipei," Collins says. "If I knew, I would have cleared my schedule."

Tórir smiles again. "I find the best meetings are when one is caught unawares."

 _The other party, you mean,_ Collins thinks sourly. To Tórir: "I assume you're here to check on the blood sample from the Queen."

"Partly. Yes."

"I assure you. The results are coming along nicely. We'll soon be in the next phase of _Project Epsilon_."

"I see."

Tórir's eyes flick to the monitors. He regards the flurry of feedback with interest.

"So those are the prototypes," he says. "Based on D67?"

"Yes," Collins says. "But these protypes go far beyond anything D67 could create."

"I should hope so." The humor in Tórir's voice doesn't downplay its seriousness. "It was troublesome to get that blood."

It isn't Collins' purview, much less part of his personality, to offer praise. Especially when he knows Tórir's original gambit was kidnapping Saya—and that he failed spectacularly to succeed.

"It's my understanding," Collins says, "that you'd hoped to capture a _live_ Queen."

"As it is my understanding," Tórir counters pleasantly, "that once your experiment is concluded, alive or dead will be irrelevant."

Is that a jab on his ability, or its lack? Collins scowls, but lets it pass. "Some Assembly Required, let's just say."

"No rush. I have ample time."

 _Of course._

 _The privilege of immortality._

Collins keeps the bitterness off his face. "It must be quite strange for you."

"Strange?"

"Grappling with the changes of the world. Technology. Culture. Behavior. I'm sure you're accustomed to a very different lifestyle."

Tórir raises his eyebrows, recognizing Collins' comment as elicitation, intended to segue into his history. Then he shrugs, and says, "One learns to adapt. You, for instance, have done well in Taipei. Carsten says you once worked for Red Shield. He also mentioned that you departed under a… cloud."

 _Carsten. That blabbermouth._

"There were disagreements," Collins says neutrally.

"Personal, or professional?" Tórir's smile is a token. "If you don't mind my asking."

Collins _does_ mind. The surface politeness conditioned into him doesn't extend to personal divulgences. Least of all with a stranger. Tórir strikes him as a wild card. Carsten, in his correspondences to Collins, sounded halfway infatuated with him. IBM-UAWA, meanwhile, are on cloud nine over an ancestral Chevalier.

Collins shares their intellectual curiosity, but not their elation. There is something about Tórir, under his cool veneer of refinement, that reminds Collins of a hustler. In the scientific community, snake-oil salesmen have no place. They are even less welcome in Collins' professional life.

Then Tórir says, "It is a pity."

"What is?"

"Red Shield. Cinq Fleshes. Even IBM-UAWA. They give individuals with your talent a platform. But you must also operate according to their parameters. I imagine it must be confining."

Collins resents the presumption, despite its accuracy. "We do what we must for our bread and butter."

"Yes." Tórir glances away, and for a moment his gaze seems far-off. Collins wonders what he is seeing. "That is partly why I came to visit you."

"Me?"

"I understand the gravity of the project you are working on. I understand my role in it. But I also feel we can go beyond the project itself." His eyes bite into Collins with renewed sharpness. "I am hoping to gather like-minded individuals for that end. People with vision and skills. Independent thinkers."

Collins senses a ploy. And yet the Chevalier's gaze is a powerful lure, its sincerity not a semblance but second-nature.

Carefully, he asks, "What exactly are you suggesting?"

Tórir's smile is as oblique as his reply. "You were correct earlier. You said I am accustomed to a different lifestyle. It is true." Quieter, "I am from a time, Dr. Collins, when 'Chiropterans' were not an abstract bogeyman. They were as real as you or I. They walked amongst ordinary men. They _ruled_ over them."

"Ruled?" Collins' curiosity isn't entirely feigned. "As what? Social leaders? Apex predators?"

"Both." Tórir regards him sidelong, "I understand you once theorized such a possibility. _Icons of Evolution_. A wonderful work."

Collins raises his brows, not allowing himself to be flattered. "You've done your research."

"For good reason. Despite a scarcity of resources, you were right."

Something like surprise blossoms in Collins' chest. "I wrote that paper a long time ago."

"But its relevance bears mentioning." Tórir smiles. That same smile—yet this time it is different. A visage of intimacy so genuine that Collins nearly succumbs. "In your work, you theorized that the rise of human civilization coincided with their first known contact with 'Chiropterans'. You stated that the two species coexisted in varying degrees of harmony. But humans proved more adaptable. They were able to catch up with, then surpass, their genetic superiors." He chuckles. "I can say with certainty that is true. But mankind had to be… _pushed_ into the first step."

"Pushed?" Collins' curiosity has shaded into full-blown fascination. "How?"

Tórir drifts over to the monitors. One of the subjects is trapped halfway between human and beast: blood drips from self-inflicted bitemarks on the arms, the bonelike teeth snap-snapping.

Tórir regards the sight impassively. "It's true that humans are a clever species. But 'Chiropterans' were much cleverer. In a perfect world, they would have continued to reign over us." His brow twitches, "This is not a perfect world. And the world the Chiropteran Queens ruled over? Even less. They were tyrants. Absolute monsters. They had to be deposed. Whatever it took… to pave the way for a new breed of immortal."

"A new breed?"

"Ones free from the bondage of the Queens. Ones who ruled their own destinies."

Collins shakes his head. This is getting too surreally abstract. "You'll forgive my saying so, but I have yet to encounter this 'new' breed."

Tórir glances over, both amused and contemplative. "Would you like to?"

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"I am not asking you to follow me, Dr. Collins. I am asking you to dream. To dare." His humor fades. "As I did, when I first became a Chevalier… and brought the Queens' empire down."

"You—"

Shock-sweat breaks across Collins' forehead. A sense of cold unreality passes over him. Tórir can't be serious. It's absurd to imagine one man taking down an entire civilization. Even more absurd to imagine changing its structural paradigm, so Queens are not central but corollaries…

Tórir murmurs, " _Thy Godlike crime was to be kind/To render with thy precepts less/The sum of human wretchedness/And strengthen Man with his own mind_."

Collins stares. It is a quote from Byron's _Prometheus_. He'd often recited it during his university lectures. It served as a reminder that science was the realm of skepticism, not superstition. That its pioneers were often shunned as pariahs for unchaining mankind from the shackles of ignorance.

As the years pass, Collins' dissatisfaction with his own pariah-hood has deepened. As has his disdain for mankind's follies. His efforts for them have gone unrewarded. Pearls before swine.

All that matters now is the work. The glory of _the Godlike crime._

"I enjoy that poem," Tórir says softly. "Because I understand it. The cost of stealing secrets from gods. From passing them on to mankind—only to be forgotten by history."

"Is that what you hope to achieve now?" Collins asks. "Recognition? Adulation?"

Tórir shakes his head. "I wish to live the life I fought for. With purpose and freedom." He grins. "In the everlasting company of those who share my vision."

 _Everlasting_.

The message detonates fully through Collins. Radiating a star-struck wonder.

"I will let you think it over," Tórir says, with all the lightness of small talk. "But if you are interested, do let me know."

He bids polite farewell, and exits the lab. The door clicks shut.

Leaving Collins alone with the insectile buzz of the overhead lights.

And the shocked shiver of his own pulse.

* * *

 _I am super duper excited for next chapter, as it's sort of the 'spine' tying the entire fic (and Saya's personal journey) together! I should be done with it in two weeks' time!_

 _Hope you enjoyed! All comments and critiques are valued and welcomed!_


	36. Becoming

_Onward, ho!_

 _(No, not that kind of ho.)_

 _But speaking of - plenty of smut and shippiness lays ahead in this chapter. Saya and Haji experience a relationship renaissance, and an Important Upgrade or two. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, our wily enemy continues perfecting his plans. I had tons of fun with this installment, and hope you guys enjoy it! Feedback is always cherished, and gives me the pep and pump that I need to keep this story going!_

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

January brings a sky drained of color, and sporadic squalls.

Each morning, Saya opens her eyes to the stained-glass of her bedroom, lit with the hazy sheen of daylight, the sun diffuse behind heavy clouds. Each time, she goes from disoriented to electrified, snatching up her sword just as the dream-images fade: a burn of blue eyes in a pale face, haloed in a circle of blood.

Each time, breath by breath, she focuses on a single route.

 _I'm here. Diva isn't._

 _And that's okay._

 _It's okay._

After years of dealing in death, embracing suicide is a habit. Death is, after all, a reprieve. Whereas life is full of future uncertainties.

She meets with Red Shield's counselors, as she'd promised Haji. After an extensive psych eval, they suggest co-occurring symptoms of PTSD and DID. They tell her to take it easy, tell her family. They proffer body-centered forms of therapy. Saya accepts the diagnosis, which makes sense. But in private she remains dubious. There's no way to tell her family—except Haji—about how she's achieved through Diva's violent end the intimacy they never had in real life. No way to explain that her sister's specter isn't a malignancy, but a benign shadow she cannot shake.

A shadow infinitely lighter than the darkness of her own grief.

But she soon finds ways to drain that darkness. On the outskirts of Taipei, Red Shield discovers an abandoned factory. Its logo is a Janus-faced simulacra of Cinq Flèches: six dark spears clustered around the whorl of snake biting its tail. Lewis runs a background check, suspecting the hand of IBM-UAWA. There are clues, but nothing concrete. The staff have long-fled, and there is no evidence left behind: the corridors are a mess of broken glass and bloodsmears. All signs pointing to an experiment gone awry.

And the basement cells: swarming with Chiropterans that have broken into the city.

There are reports of escalating body-counts. Children drained bone-dry; men and women with entrails ripped out. None of it making the local headlines, but word on the streets is that the killers aren't quite human.

David and Dee gather up an elite Red Shield posse to subdue the threat. Haji, Sayumi, Sayuri, Sachi, Vicente. And—for the first time since her Awakening—Saya.

Kai is wary of her decision. But she digs her heels in until he backs down.

"I'll be fine," she says, squeezing his arm. "I promise."

The only one who doesn't argue is Haji. They've already hashed out their terms, in private. Having given his sanction, he is ready to back her up a hundred percent, to follow her in her leap of faith.

Not like a Chevalier, but the best sort of partner.

On the plane, she holds his hand under the blanket spread across their laps. Stares out the window, as the _Fasten Seat Belt_ sign comes on, and they descend into Taipei.

The city is a neon starfish, the TAIPEI 101 skyscraper rising like a spire from its central hub. Humid and overheated; like stepping into a hot spring. The taxi races from Taiwan-Taoyuan International Airport, skirting the glittering swathe of the sea. The skyscrapers are a light-wash reflected off the harbor. Warrens of streets all around, lit up with signboards, cafés, movies and malls, tangled in electric pylons and ACs spitting heat, crowded with cars, buses, motorbikes and people.

A reminder of the big world beyond Saya's limited sphere of faces: her friends and foes.

She finds herself sharing the cab with David, Dee and the twins. Goggling, she presses her nose to the glass.

"God—this place is amazing!"

Yuri hums. "It does make Naha look rustic in comparison."

"And Tokyo. And London. And New fuckin' York," says Yumi. "Taipei's the City of the Future these days."

"It's almost _radioactive_!"

"Don't get distracted," David says flatly. "We're here to hunt Chiropterans. Not sightsee."

Chastened, she flushes. "I-I know. I just—"

"Don't forget, either, that none of this would be possible without you."

"What—?"

At her father's side, Dee winks. "You saved the world, Otonashi. Remember?"

Saya manages a smile that wobbles only a little. "Yes. Vaguely."

They establish an informal base at a rest-home near Fuki Point, at the northernmost tip of the island. Reconnaissance is conducted, data gathered, hotspots narrowed out. It amazes Saya how easy it is to fall into the patterns of the past: delegating tasks among themselves, conferring and strategizing, planning and executing.

Each night, she heads out into the halogen-bright labyrinth of the city. Sometimes with Haji or the twins, but most often on her own. Ten out of ten times, she discovers nests, teeming with monsters. She drives them out systematically. Ruthlessly. And she kills them.

The creatures' dying roars, the red supernovas of their crystallizing blood, are far from pleasant. But the victory is satisfying.

At least here, she is in her element. Her body and mind fuse together, allowing her to expel energies that have no other outlet. Bit by bit, the fogginess of her displacement lifts. She is still restless and adrift, but the missions are a welcome change. New emotion fuels her.

It distracts from the hollow space left by her dead daughters.

"God- _damn_ , Otonashi!" Dee exclaims one night, after a successful hunt. "I was expecting triggers and traumagedy! But you're making us all hop and heave to!"

"Um..."

Standing over a crystallized Chiropteran with sword aloft, splattered with blood and still red-eyed, Saya blushes.

"At this rate, the city'll be cleared out by next week!"

"I-I guess."

"We still do not know who financed the experiment," Haji says quietly.

"Yeah. If it was IBM-UAWA, they covered their tracks."

"And left us to clean up their _mess_!"

Scowling, Yumi jams her _naginata_ into the eviscerated corpse at her feet, then wrenches it out, gore splattering everywhere. Watching her, Yuri retches, a burpy-barfy sound.

Concerned, Saya asks, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Yuri manages to keep her gorge down. "The fun thing about pregnancy is upchucking at every weird smell."

Yumi threads her arm through her sister's, their weapons clanking together. "You should slow down."

"It's only the early trimester."

"Late or early, stress is bad for the babies."

"You sound like Sachi." Yuri lets off a long-suffering sigh. "He already force-feeds me these _vile_ beetroot smoothies every day."

"He is not wrong," Haji says. "In my time, beetroot was a common supplement for women in the family way."

" _Family way_." Yumi guffaws. " _Jeez_ , Haji. Sometimes I wonder how in hell they got laid in your day."

Yuri smirks. "Often, considering they had a million euphemisms for it." She ticks them off her fingers. "Blanket the hornpipe. Pierce the Hogshead..."

Yumi mock-swoons, "A bit of the crumpet."

"Tipping the velvet."

"The matrimonial polka."

"Sampling the watercress," Dee says drily.

Haji sighs. "Ladies, _please_."

"See a gentleman about a cock," Saya says innocently.

The three women burst into shrieks of laughter. Haji's look is one of abject horror. But when he glances away, the corner of his mouth twitches, a smile suppressed.

Saya's own face burns with blushes. But it's also the first time in a long time since she's joked like this.

By the end of the month, Red Shield discovers three more laboratories. But their investigations are unable to trace the projects to their source. It's as if the experiment sprang from the woodwork, then just as mysteriously vanished. No records. No breadcrumb trails leading to past investors or affiliates.

Just the same insignia: six spears expanding from the circlet of a snake.

Red Shield triangulates the biggest Chiropteran nest to a derelict complex of metal refineries in Jinguashi. There, as wind blows with bitter force off the river, and moonlight plays off the buildings that sit in ruined exoskeletons of concrete, the team launches an all-out assault.

The Chiropterans come in a hailstorm, one, then three, then six, then dozens—all hurling themselves at the intruders with savage abandon. It is a fray of gunshots and sword-slashes, the air shimmering with adrenaline, thick with roars and bloodsprays and the stink of rotting garbage.

But Saya is so revved that failure is an impossibility.

It feels as if she is everywhere: dodging a barrage of David's bullets to bury her blade into one monster's chest. Pirouetting past the hail of Haji's daggers to swing the next one's head off its shoulders. Cartwheeling over Vicente's bulk to cleave yet another one's skull in half.

As she runs through the building, mowing down prey, she is struck by how _natural_ it feels: her whole body suffused with a bright glow of energy—a laser beam made flesh. It is not just a matter of reinhabiting skills and muscles, rusted from thirty years in hibernation. The sweat and strain rejuvenate her.

She's forgotten the satisfaction of wielding her sword in her hands. A fifth limb—a symbol of her wrath. Forgotten the surety of her own body—graceful and fluid and deadly.

A weapon in itself.

The scene unfolds at a degree both superfast and supersaturated. Sayuri, exquisitely graceful in battle as everywhere else, a _sai_ balanced in each hand, shredding down a Chiropteran thrice her height. Yumi, flames all but crackling off her body, walloping two Chiropterans with her _naginata_ , her smile all feral gusto. Further off, Sachi is half-sniper, half-dancer, his spin-kicks lashing out with the same easy precision as his bullets. Next to him, Vicente bulldozes a handful of Chiropterans with unstoppable momentum, his huge fists flashing, a bonecrunching _one-two, one-two._

Dee and David bring up the flank, wheeling in figure eights, their gunfire slicing across the furor like connecting wires.

It is almost a symphony: the cohesion natural, unpremeditated, almost perfect. Beyond love, or friendship, or duty. It is something else altogether, a transformation that pivots on the shared understanding that it is win or lose, live or die.

A becoming into which things collapse and are remade.

"Saya! Look out!"

She spins around; three Chiropterans leap at her from behind.

Even as she slashes one with her blood-coated katana and exchanges blows with the next, she is aware of Haji's dark shape in her peripheral vision, a doppelganger cohering from splinters of shadow. They fight back-to-back, in perfect sync. Haji feinting and dodging one Chiropteran's claws, Saya lunging to drive her sword into the other.

After a few moments' _pas-de-deux_ , Haji flips the last beast over his head. It lands right on Saya's blade, and crystallizes in hard spasms.

Mock-playful, Saya curtsys. Haji smiles.

By three a.m, the refinery is in shambles; the team fans out to finish off any stragglers, until the drone of helicopter rotors signals that reinforcements are pouring in. When Red Shield's clean-up crew take over the scene, Saya and the rest melt off into the foggy radiance of the night.

Yuri congratulates her with a beaming high-five; Yumi with a squealing glomp that nearly knocks her over.

"That was _awesome_!"

"You killed it— _literally_!"

"And oorah for that," Vicente grins. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Or in your way," Sachi says solemnly. "You, umm, sliced one of my bullets in half."

Wild-haired and woozy, Saya lets their remarks pepper her, a flush burning along her cheekbones. Her sword, slick with blood, is still gripped in her hand. Her heart trip-hammers in a cadence that mimics terror—but is really a homecoming.

"Perhaps it is best to call it a night," Haji suggests quietly.

"No way in hell!" Yumi says. "I'm up for drinks and dancing 'till dawn!"

"It _is_ dawn."

"Dancing 'till midnight, then!"

Haji looks as if he might interject—for her sake, Saya realizes, rather than any exhaustion on his part. Except, for once, she is neither overstimulated nor on the verge of collapse. A mysterious change she doesn't understand, but which didn't transpire during the battle.

It is an old sensation—one that has been creeping back, little by little, as the days pass. She'll have to figure out exactly when it began, but later.

Later.

She takes Haji's hand in hers. "Come on, Haji. We've been fighting for days."

"But Saya—"

"Please?" Her smile is coaxing. "We deserve one night to celebrate."

Maybe it is the _Please_. Or maybe it is the intense glow in her eyes where before there was only a gleam of wistful absence—as if something in her has come alive.

Whatever the case, Haji nods.

"If that is what you wish."

Mollified, Sayuri and Sayumi haul Saya off. But Haji's hand stays knotted with hers. When she glances over, he is keeping pace with her. His eyes hold a quiet marvel. As of he is watching a drowner surface and breathe for the first time.

The first time in a long, long time.

Taipei at night glows with a bone-deep heat. Saya remembers even the tiniest details from their excursion. The neon signs reflecting off the puddles on the street. The rusty smell of the battle still on her skin, despite the shower and change of clothes. The soursweet tang of cocktails in bar after bar; the music a deafening boom. Sayumi's fuzzy voice she'd talked right into Saya's ear to be heard; the glossy peacock blue of Sayuri's nail polish as she'd drummed her fingers against her sweating glass of starfruit juice. How, soused on craft beers, they'd played an impromptu teenybopper game of spin-the-bottle which devolved into a free-for-all: Yumi pouncing on Sachi to deliver a loud smack to the bridge of his nose, V gawping in betrayal before Yuri balanced it out with a demure peck to his cheekbone, while Saya, for reasons unknown, bypassed David's grimacing face to fit her lips to Dee's pouty plum-colored ones, while Haji watched with an expression of subtle but subtly intense interest.

Later, they'd stumbled, tipsy and in high heels, to a street cart to try a gorgeous, greasy fare of deep-fried taro balls, each one squishing deliciously between their teeth. Afterward, in the coolish air of a park strung with fairylights, she'd tutored a blushing Sachi and a handsy Vicente on the waltz, one by one, their feet colliding together, while at a bench the twins cackled and Haji gave a dry half-smile. Finally, at their rest-house, loose and drowsy with alcohol and adrenaline, she lay in bed, snugged up to the cool expanse of Haji's nude body. Startling him by bringing his hands up to cup her breasts, grumbling, "You don't grope me enough," and scrunching her brow in confusion when he laughed soundlessly into her hair.

They fly back to Okinawa to turbulence and torrential rain. The homecoming is bittersweet; hugs and congratulations from Kai, but also hushed Red Shield conferences about the troubling existence of the laboratories. The experiments have a weight about them, a meticulousness of professionalism, to suggest this isn't a coincidence, but the wheels of a dangerous plan set into motion—with IBM-UAWA pulling the strings.

Strings Red Shield must cut—and fast.

As everyone returns to their day-to-day routines, there is an uneasy sense of something brewing. But also a feeling, shot through with a vein of hope, that they will weather the storm if it comes.

When it comes.

The gray sky holds a breath-held uncertainty. It knits itself inside Saya, until some days she can't sit still. At Haji's quiet suggestion, she begins volunteering at the local Uechi-ryū dojo, teaching karate to adults.

She is something of a novelty at first—the wafer-thin girl who can execute a perfect _tai-otoshi_ throw on opponents twice her size. But more than strength, she has _gaman_ —fortitude and spirit—that can only be cultivated after years and years of practice.

The grandmaster is intrigued, and keeps her on condition. She proves an attractive lure for newcomers, and a fair but demanding taskmaster for the students. The dojo lets her stay on for the summer, and then eventually as a semi-official fixture.

Saya enjoys it. Not just the grapples and joint-locks on the _tatami_ mats, the slats of sunlight falling from the high ceiling, the playful ribbing between the students. She enjoys the sense of having something to do, of a schedule anchoring her aimless life.

At dawn, when the dojo still carries a whiff of lemon cleaning solution, and the early risers begin trickling in, she likes doing her katas, circling and feinting in a fluid dance, blind to the gawps and whispers of those watching her. She enjoys the polished gleam of the floorboards under her feet, the heft of her sword in her hands, the oiled sleekness of her own body—a half-dead shell that is slowly being channeled with potent energies.

Becoming something new.

* * *

April rolls in with a dark outpouring of storms.

Each evening, Saya grows used to pitter-patter of rainfall, and to the lightning that erupts like shards of starlight, hitting the stained-glass colors of her bedroom window and setting them aglow.

Often, she sits on the wrought iron bench at the patio with Diva's red stone cradled in her palms, watching the rain pour down, collecting in the leaves and trickling into the grass in glittery streamers. Frogs play hopscotch in the puddles; coconut crabs scuttle among the trees, their dark bodies an iridescent blue in the gloom.

A world caught in furor. Yet everything in perfect alignment.

Sometimes, when the rainfall softens to a misty drizzle, she throws open the patio doors to let the cool wind curl around her body. A few records by Erik Satie, which Haji plays on the antique phonograph, send her into a trance of giggly waltzing, snatching her Chevalier's hand to coax him into the garden, their bodies swaying in a graceful rise and fall across the slick summer grass.

Later, they make love under the trellis, drippy but passably dry, their shapes tangled together like ivy against the wall, mouths gorging on kisses and cries unspooling like a spider's thread to blend with the dripping water. And still later, when he's carried her upstairs, peeling off her wet things and tipping her into bed, she clings to him, sobbing, letting him console her from the fears—of children, of separation and loss—locked like thunderclouds in her chest.

Always waiting to break into downpour over the surface of her happiness.

In October, the second academic semester commences. Haji resumes teaching classes full-time at the gray grid-patterned monolith that is the University of Arts. In his absence, Saya finds herself increasingly bored and irritable, languishing indoors like a caged tigress, having pizza for breakfast and embarrassingly huge amounts of black-sugar pocky for lunch.

One evening, she goes out for karaoke with the twins, gets soused on ten whole bottles of Awamori, starts a fight with two off-duty US servicemen who keep catcalling her, and ends up in the local drunktank for disorderly conduct. Kai and Haji—the former beaming with pride, as if she's fulfilled her last obligation as a Miyagusuku, and the latter headtilting in that concerned, vaguely canine way—bail her out at 3 am.

The next evening, she bakes Kai apology cookies, shamefaced and stammery in the face of his and the twins laughter, and then tries giving Haji a little, er, _special attention_ as they drive home from Omoro—a cheeky endeavor that nearly ends in their car swerving into a grassy ditch near Wakasa park.

Home at the villa's solarium, the hot-tub filled with silky red hibiscus flowers—another apology—she sinks back with Haji in the fragrant water, nestled between his arms and legs. Trying not to let him see that needy, anxious, insecure glint in her eyes, because if he does, he will ask—

"Restless?"

"Wha—? _No_!"

"You're certain?" He nuzzles the moist top of her head. "I can take time off from the university."

"Please no! I-I don't want to take you away from your life—"

"My life is here, Saya. With you."

The soft matter-of-factness of his voice sends shivers of pleasure through her. But this isn't— _shouldn't_ _be_ —about her.

"It is, and isn't," she says. "It's unfair if you're—obligated to always entertain me."

"Do I behave like someone under obligation?"

"No. But nobody can live on Planet Saya forever."

"Shall I try?"

He gathers her closer, his face alongside hers, and his gaze is like blue Curaçao you can only dream of bottling: smooth and hypnotic and intimate. Blushing, she folds herself into his embrace. Sometimes, like now, the synchronicity of their bodies electric, the illusion that they can be normal, a couple just like other couples, is so compelling, so three-dimensional, that she can almost forget everything they've suffered to be together.

Everything they still stand to suffer, with each Long Sleep.

Then Haji drops a kiss to her shoulder. "Saya—please. Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Think what you are thinking. We have driven that topic to the ground."

Flushing, she wants to deny it; her own transparency is disconcerting. Except he'll see through that too. Her body is like a mutable weather system only he can read.

Lashes dipped, she murmurs, "You're right. I shouldn't brood. It's just—"

"Just what?"

"Don't laugh, okay?"

He raises his eyebrows— _Have I ever?_ —and she thinks: _Good point_. And on her mental to-do-list, jots down: _Note to self. Make Haji laugh more._

"It's just that time's moving too fast. It'll be December soon. One year since we started out. Two more years before—" She breaks off. Quieter: "I just want us to be together as much as possible."

"You said you wanted space."

"I did. I _do_. And it's been good. I have so much to catch up on. But the more time passes, the more I realize—"

"What?"

She turns her head so they are eye-to-eye, a tear-darkened stare. "I want this to last forever. Our life here. _Us_. I know it's impossible—but the thought is always there, it's under my skin, and everytime I'm with you, I wish—"

Then he is kissing her, swallowing all the words for a perfect, dizzying moment. A moment where they are in the same place, with the same needs.

Where, freed from the storm of past and future, they can pledge to each other the simple truth.

A week later, the twins—smiling like two cats with a bowl of cream—present her cleverly-finessed paperwork from Red Shield. A high-school diploma. College entrance-exam certifications. And an acceptance letter from—

Saya goggles. "You didn't!"

" _We_ didn't." Yumi smirks. "August did."

"You wanted to spend time with Haji, right?" Yuri teases.

Saya gapes at the paperwork. Red Shield has always given her immaculate ID cards and passports from different nations, issuing her a new one every Awakening, the birthdate changing even as her photo remains the same. She is always Otonashi Saya, age sixteen, five foot three with brown eyes, born in Bordeaux, France.

This era's version beams out of documents identifying her as a native and resident of Okinawa. Twenty-one years old, a star athlete and aspiring musician.

Studying at the Prefectural University of Arts.

The twins clap their hands on her shoulders. " _Goukaku omedetou_!"

She enrolls in the afternoon courses: ethnomusicology, western music history, with a workshop in _ikebana_ —flower arrangement. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Haji drops her off for class, before heading to his own lectures. At the end of the day, he waits by the entrance, under the sprawling shade of the _gajumaru_ tree, surrounded as always by that little pack of students vying for _Goldschmidt Sensei's_ attention.

Saya finds she gets a kick out of stopping midway, her arms laden with books, to drink in the sight of him: shadowy as a plume of smoke risen up from the ground, the late evening sunlight making his skin paler than usual, head tilted with idle attentiveness as he listens to something one of the students is saying.

And that moment he looks over and spots her, the idleness becomes a clear-eyed focus, lips curving in a faint smile.

Mindful of the university's rules on teacher-student dating, they keep their relationship discreet. They never kiss or touch on campus; she never takes any of the courses he teaches. It's a game for her: playing the frisky butterfly at the corner of his eye. On hot days outside, mid-chatter with classmates, she sighs and scoops her hair up off her nape to dry the sweat on her skin, giving him—deliberately? innocently?—a view of her arched neck. On shady afternoons, at the outdoor benches, she sits across from him, eating her lunch but really watching him watch her cross and uncross her legs, his blue gaze flickering back-and-forth from her skirt's hemline to the page of the book he's been pursuing for the past fifteen minutes.

More fun still: getting him home—or just somewhere alone—and letting the space between them, of politeness and formality, dissolve into the sweetness of skin on skin. Waylaid in a secluded closet, a ditch overrun with wildflowers, a shadowy grove of trees, his patience spiking into a doublebarreled _bang-bang-bang_ of ferocity that leaves her a wobbling mess, clothes and hair askew, with an ache between her thighs that throbs for hours afterward like a gunshot blast.

The ambient static between them—however downplayed—is palpable. Enough so that Saya has to blushingly field her share of embarrassing and downright intrusive questions as the weeks pass, as she attracts both speculative glances and feminine envy, as she finds herself, quite unwillingly, stuck with a shady reputation, an inverted Queen-bee-ness.

Then Haji gets an informal notice from the Dean of Students—and a discussion is necessary.

"I don't know why it's such a big deal." Grumbling, she slurps her soda. "I'm not in any of your classes."

"It is the potential scandal that concerns them."

"Like what? We're consenting adults. My ID says I'm twenty-one!"

"But still a student. So the risk for exploitation remains."

"Exploitation? Of _you_ over _me_?" A huff. " _Première nouvelle_!"

Haji hides a smile.

They are parked in the wetly neon-smeared lot of Mos Burger, sharing the ritual late-night snack. A fine drizzling of rain speckles the windows. With the engine cut off, the lulling chirr of cicadas fills the air. The inside of the car is redolent with the aroma of greasy hamburgers and tangy teriyaki sauce. Most of it is Saya's: Haji is interested only in the little red _t_ _ō_ _garashi_ peppers that come with the meal.

Since becoming a Chevalier, he is only fond of the very spicy, the very salty. Anything else, he's once told her, tastes like dishwater.

Fishing a crinkly red pepper out from her bag, Saya lets him lip it from her greasy fingers. Then he kisses her, so she tastes the tingly burn of pepper on her tongue. When they break off, she giggles. An idea—bittersweet, improbable—floats into her brain before popping like a soda bubble.

"Maybe the Dean will shut up if we—"

"Hm?"

"N-Never mind. It's silly."

"What is?"

Stalling, she slurps up the dregs of her drink. Her cheeks are hot, but she can't bear to say why. Can't bear to expose to dismal reality a thought her entire being clutches at, like a little girl standing in the garden at twilight, dreaming of faeries.

"Saya?"

"It's nothing, Haji." Stowing the near-empty bags away, she buckles the seatbelt. "Take me home." Her voice drops, mood going from rain-clouds to moonrays. "I have to finish my assignments before I have my wicked way with you."

A smile moves behind Haji's face. He obeys, gunning the engine. The car pulls smoothly out of the lot and into the half-deserted intersection.

It is lovely night. Store-signs reflect off the glossy streets, sparking rainbow colors in the opaque puddles along the curb. The rain forms a milky glaze at the windshield's edge. Saya catches hers and Haji's reflections in the glass, her face thoughtful in the glow of passing streetlights, Haji's own a study of half-lidded focus. Her Chevalier drives the way he fights: smooth turns and precise cuts, going just a little too fast, but never quite breaking the speed limit.

At the red light, he drops one hand from the wheel—he always keeps both palms there, in perfect symmetry—and wraps it around hers. Squeezing gently, he murmurs, "I can transfer out."

"Huh—? To where?"

"The University of the Ryukyus."

"But—but then we can't spend time together!"

"Perhaps not. But the position is more attractive. Higher pay. Better benefits."

"More attractive than w-with me?"

In answer, he draws her hand to his lips, and kisses the palm. _I was only joking._

Her pulse stumbles. Brain buzzing with the thing she's struggling to keep inside herself. Shakily: " _I_ should transfer out. I enjoy the classes—but I don't want you getting fired, or blackballed, or—"

"I doubt it will come to that."

No, of course it won't. He is the jewel in the crown for the university. Their celebrity instructor and star attraction—drawing international scholarship. Half his students have crushes on him and the other half aspire to beat his musical record, a combination that does wonders for classroom motivation. The university won't let him go unless the offense is super-egregious.

Haji: reading her mind. "Please do not worry. This will blow over."

"You think so?"

"These things inevitably do."

"Well." She bites her lip. "As long as you promise not to run off to a younger, prettier university."

"I do."

She smiles at the way he says it. Quiet and solemn as a wedding vow.

The light changes, and Haji resumes driving, steering one-handed. The other hand stays clasped in hers. With quiet wistfulness, Saya's fingers trace the outline of his knuckles, touching the raised blue veins, the hard pale joints. She thinks of a wedding band glinting there, a sight at once conventional and extraordinary, and feels her heart stumble again in that familiar way.

"Haji?"

"Hm?"

"Why don't we get married?"

After a century of crashing lows and propulsive highs, after a shared life where every major event has been overwhelmingly physical—becoming Queen and Chevalier, becoming war-comrades, becoming lovers—she didn't think it would be like this, so quiet and matter-of-fact, in a car doing thirty on half-lit rainy streets.

Didn't think that she'd want it to be.

Then Haji is staring at her, a strange expression on his face. A blankness that seeps into a dubious frown, and a few moments later, more dubious hope.

Abruptly he glances away.

"It is not something... either of us prioritized. Not at the Zoo. Certainly not in the war."

"I know. But—could it be different now?"

"You are asking _me_?"

" _Of course_ I'm asking you! Otherwise we'd dance around it for another century!" She takes a deep breath. His hand is still in hers, the car-seat a leathery buffer. Yet she feels as if she is free-falling into a dark spread of sea. Loneliness raising gooseflesh on her skin, like the whistle of icy wind as she plummets. She will drown unless he catches her. "Haji. Let's do it. Let's get married?"

"Saya—"

"What?" A creeping chill of dismay. "You don't want to—?"

He doesn't answer except to veer off suddenly, bringing the car to a smooth stop in a weed-choked lot. She starts to ask what's wrong. But he crushes out her question in a kiss. Insatiable and openmouthed, her head caught in both his hands, his lower lip between her teeth. She bites it, and suddenly there is blood between them, spreading heat and sweetness.

Again, like the night they'd played the _Fantaisie Impromptu_ , she thinks of that old Russian wedding tradition. The bride and groom sharing a kiss, suspended in a bubble of delight, to chants of _Gorko Gorko Gorko..._

"I, mmm... _gorko_ ," she breathes in a dreamy voice.

" _Vovse-net_ ," he says, not missing a beat.

"I-I mean it. It'll be for both of us. Something new. Something normal—whatever we want that to mean." A proud little smile. "Something I can show off to everyone."

"Everyone?"

"My family, and Red Shield, and God. Oh—and total strangers!"

She half-wants to do that now. Roll down the window, and shout it at passing cars, stray dogs, the croaking _kajika_ frogs.

But Haji is watching her. So soft-eyed and tentative: "Saya, are you sure about this?"

It's what he'd asked the first time they'd made love. Same expression, same tone. Like her words have the power to dash him to pieces.

"Haji— _yes_."

Not to shut the Dean up. Not so they can stay close. Not because of all the triggers that make someone reassess their life and choices: Joel's death. Sayuri's pregnancy. Her miscarriage. The disturbing resurgence of Chiropterans. She wants this because of _him_.

Their eyes meet; his gaze is incredulous, almost awed. He looks the way skydivers do, when the parachute blossoms: gravity sucking them into a swoop of pure blue, disaster a crashing certainty, _bam_ , that fast—and then, _oh_ , safe anchorage.

She drags his head down to kiss him again. His face and lips are chilled from the AC, but his mouth is hot opening against hers. He wraps her in his arms, lets her wriggle closer until she is practically in his lap. A crazy wonderment rises in her chest. She knows he feels it too, because he is smiling when they break off on gasps.

A smile that she hasn't seen in years—bright and irresistibly boyish.

Then the smile becomes a laugh, and after her initial shock—how long has it been since she's heard that sound, except in half-snatches?—she falls into giggles too. They kiss and kiss until the windows go foggy, their bodies incandescent with wild joy. As intimate as they are, it feels like a rediscovery as much as a covenant, like a sprig of flowers sprung up bright-red in a blackened field.

Like a fresh, exultant becoming.

* * *

The engagement, once formally announced, eases something in Saya that she hadn't realized was edgy.

At first she thinks it is the urge for normalcy. Hadn't she, after all, once measured time by the presence or absence of normalcy? Two weeks of travel on Red Shield operations, from Yekaterinburg to Paris, with the chance to watch the scenery whiz by in train windows. Three days, before a bloodbath in a rural Vietnamese township, to thumb through glossy magazines and play frothy pop-music on her ipod. One blissful hour of catchball with Riku and Kai, before the attack on Red Shield's headquarters.

Normal was a rare currency. Something to be treasured, tucked away in a pocket of her memory so she could take it out at odd moments and trace it with her mind's fingers, marveling at the way it changed texture: a radiant glow one moment, a pastel blur the next.

Nowadays, she treasures a different normalcy. The crispness of schoolbooks in her bag. The bloodpacks crowded in the cooler. The spicy copper aroma of _schwarzsauer_ soup bubbling in Omoro's kitchen on weekends. Handling the soft oily rag and heavy whetstone to clean her katana. Concealing with colorful scarves the pretty blotched marks of Haji's kisses on her neck. The fertile green humidity of the solarium, overflowing with blue roses. The little vibration at her spine that lets her know another Queen is near—Sayumi, Sayuri. The secret flutters of life when she lays a palm on Yuri growing belly. The heartsore sense of waking each morning, not thinking _I will kill Diva_ but _I will live on without her._

That's what the engagement symbolizes, she realizes. Proof that she is living on.

Her family is ecstatic with the news. Sayumi and Sayuri are full of plans, all girlish excitement and scary intensity as they debate jewelers, wedding locations, dressmakers, caterers. Julia congratulates Saya with a cheek-kiss that makes her blush, as proud as a doting aunt. David accepts the news without batting an eyelid, his no-nonsense glare telegraphing: _This is relevant why_? Kai gives Haji a congratulatory hair-ruffle that makes him bristle, saying, _Welcome to the family, bro._ Sachi dryly suggests a honeymoon retracing all the cities they traveled during the war. V calls dibs on a chocolate wedding cake. Dee ponders the security measures of an indoors vs. outdoors ceremony.

But Saya is too floaty to be bogged down by the details.

She and Haji exchange engagement rings. A matching set in the ouroboros pattern that was popular in their era. His: simple, silver, inlaid in sapphire. Hers, ornate, gold, studded in black diamonds, with a red peridot crest for the snake's skull.

V declares the rings _Metal as fuck_ —until Haji explains their significance. The snake biting its own tail: a symbol of time, rebirth, and eternal love.

"Jeez. That's so _romantic_!" Yumi swoons.

"Shyeah. Like the bar wasn't already high enough," V grumbles.

Saya just twists the ring on her finger, and brings it to her smiling lips.

In the days that pass, she notices the subtle lightness in Haji's manner. The engagement satisfies something in him, too. No longer just the watchful sentry: as her fiancé, he lavishes on her the idolatry of a high priest with his deity. Always gentle and attentive, but now there is an intensity layered over everything he does.

He touches her more before company, cool hand warming itself on her spine or her hip or the sweetspot between her shoulderblades. Saya comes across little gifts in her room: a set of gleaming onyx _shiruken_ , Belgian chocolates shaped like chess pieces, bottles of sumptuous attars, rare records of her favorite symphonies by Mozart, intricate sterling-silver daggers that double as hairpins, and a string of decadently-glowing pearls that look as perfect on rosy summer dresses as on bare skin.

Their lovemaking acquires a different patina too. In bed, he is like surf crashing over her: hungry, needy, possessive. Saya has always known still waters run deep. In public, her Chevalier may be all buttoned-up and proper, _comme il faut_ in word and deed. But there has always been a bottomless core of monomania welling up beneath.

Now it is all around her—ocean-waves rolling endlessly in and out. Submerging her alive.

He already does anything and everything she wants in bed. But lately he brings his own suggestions to the table—hot, creative, wicked things Saya has never imagined she'd like. Their games darken from a deliciously straitlaced vanilla—her once-favorite flavor—into caramel crème and then rich smoky chocolate: restraints, ribbons, hot wax, vibrating toys, sweet torments of ice and sparks, blades and blood.

Sometimes, it is salaciously sweet. Bound hand and foot to the bed, not with cuffs but manacles lined in velvet, her body tautly starfished across the sheets as his mouth gorges between her thighs. Flat-tongued strokes tracing her like a wet paintbrush, not a single inch of her escaping his attentions, inner thighs, labia, clitoris, everything burning-hot and sopping-wet, on the cusp of climax, her hitched sobbing loud in her ears as he coaxes her higher, leaves off, only to begin again and then again, his tongue stabbing her open with wicked accuracy, soft and slick, cool and thick, working her over and over until she can't take anymore, until her orgasm coalesces in a blinding palette, a chef-d'oeuvre of shrieking delirium that explodes through her entire body.

Other times, it is scary, unspooling her control so totally she thinks she'll never surface. Facedown in wet pillows, flushed and sobbing, while he covers her, fills her in ways she's flatly refused before, ways she'd thought forbidden and filthy and which now propel her to a psychological zone that makes her shiver and beg as his fingers pluck at her nipples, pinch between her thighs, imparting tender little cruelties while she whimpers for him to _move_ , to grant her the barest whisper of friction even as he keeps her pinned, immobile between his cool body and the cool sheets, taunting her without words to work herself on him, to bring him off with the barest movement until her muscles vibrate with the strain of it and her breaths shred into bone-deep groans and finally unrecognizable _screams_ as her climax leaps out of her.

Most nights, by default, she has all the control. Tying him to her favorite armchair, with wires or just words, the pale nude length of him broken into delineated muscles and weblike scars that call to mind a seraph fallen from its plinth. Except no seraph can tremble all over the way he does, his erection alive in her palms, a silky silk-ribboned roll that she torments with the faintest flutter of tongue-tip and teeth, scraping his skin on purpose, biting his thighs and belly in overlapping geometries of ownership while Haji rewards her with harsh helpless sounds, anxious sibilations, raspy-edged pleas. Laying down marks on his skin with blade-tips or matchsticks, which fade in seconds and yet linger, the same way her own power lingers afterward with a heady buzz in her bones. And when she finally lets him spend, undoing the silk ribbon with a wicked flourish, his hips ride the air in a frenzy of jerks and his head falls back on an inarticulate cry, an indecent cry, his erection tight against his belly and splattering his skin, his groans softening into exquisite little gasps as she takes back him in her mouth to begin the game anew.

It's a dynamic exchange, a seesawing between bittersweetness and bliss. They try every trick, break every taboo. Yet their comings-together aren't a test of mutual trust. More the acting-out of it. They aren't setting their limits so much as redefining them.

It is no different from when he finds her tearstained at lonely moments in the afternoon, and she lets him gather her close instead of wrenching away. Or when he sits sometimes by her feet at night, his head cradled in her lap, letting her card gentle fingers in his hair as he whispers, in a voice full of shards and rust, about the uglier times of his boyhood that shape his silences even now.

Yet it isn't all gloom and doldrums. If anything, the days are brighter, fuller, even as they grow shorter.

The change, Saya finds, is in herself. The muted happiness she carried inside is becoming more fluid and far-reaching. Almost innate. Her desire for Haji is the same. From the furtive fascination of their early days, to something deeper and altogether more saturated: his proximity stirs an unknown place in her.

Sometimes when he touches her there is a shortness of breath, an intense throb that not even lovemaking can ease. In those moments, everything becomes about Haji. His eyes, his mouth, his voice. She finds pleasure in watching him drink blood, the pale movement of his Adam's apple in slow-motion. In the bath, she likes soaping his back, entranced by the sleek pebbles of his spine and the sharp delineation of his shoulderblades. In the mornings, she watches his reflected image at the dresser as he slips into his suits, his fingers so articulate on the shirt buttons, or combing the unruly drag of his hair, or straightening the crispness of his cuffs—sartorial stylings from another century that carry so effortlessly into the present.

Sometimes he intercepts her stare, and she blushes and looks away. She wonders if he smells it on her. The chemical signature of besottedness. Strange. She'd been brought up to believe a desire so undilutedly physical was common in men, not women.

Like so much else, it's a lie.

And like so much else, she learns it isn't besottedness at all, but its final notes, the way a song completes itself in the mind of a musician.

An emotion whose shape she cannot grasp... until it swells all at once into something she can.

* * *

"What has gotten into you?" Haji whispers.

They are spooned together in bed, a rhombus of sunlight spilling in through the half-curtained window. The afternoon is an unusual scorcher. The air hangs lush with tropical humidity, silking their nude bodies like dew.

The temperature melts Saya's mind; sets something inside her aflame. She should be dressed and outdoors. Working out, helping Kai with Omoro's register, reading the heap of textbooks for her exam, trimming the exotic orchids in the solarium. Instead all she wants is to stay in bed with Haji, having him as many ways as her body will permit. Each time he gently begins to detach, she drags him back down. Each time, the sun climbs higher at the window, saturating the air while their desire burns itself out, then re-ignites, each time slower than the first, then slower still, until they are lapping at the tideline between languor and greed.

Between couplings, she clings to him, starved for his kisses, her body as strung-out and shameless as an addict's in the making. She feels empty without his weight against hers, his hips between her thighs, the fullness of him inside her. He has become a n all-consuming necessity.

"It must be spring fever," Haji speculates with a half-lidded smile. _"_ _Cela réchauffe leur sang et fait bouillir leur cerveau_."

Saya stretches drowsily across the disordered sheets. " _Mais c'est Novembre_."

A contemplative hum. _"Alors vous êtes juste une succube._ "

It might be a complaint. Except his voice is so thick with satisfaction that the words run together. She shivers when he snugs tighter against her back, his cool palm laying claim with idle caresses to her breasts, then down the curvature of her belly to tangle in the damp curls at her mons. He tugs playfully, and chuckles at her little gasp. His erection glides up the seam of her body from behind. Just the tip, nuzzling at the slick lips of her sex, then stretching her open, inch by inch. She cries out—and all at once he's gliding into her, deep and full, his arm encircling her closer, a sigh rasping at a subvocal pitch in his throat.

For a moment Saya struggles to breathe. Her body flutters helplessly around him. There is a sensation—just as helpless—of something dangerous caught inside her. A secret kept secret even from herself—ready to dislodge at the barest breath.

Haji's own cool breath stirs the little hairs on her nape. "You didn't answer my question."

"Hm?"

"What has gotten into you?"

"Besides the obvi— _ohhh_."

He rocks at half-speed, his fingertips teasing her in front, dancing in little sparks of sensation. She quivers and bites her lip. She's come so often in the past hours. Her clitoris is swollen and tender, head swimming as all the blood in her body congeals in her groin. He strokes on, neither harder nor faster, and drops lazy kisses her shoulderblades. Sunlight dapples the air in strands of melting honey. Her pleasure builds up the same way, a liquid twist of slowness, blossoming from her center and yet in stasis, in the deliciously prolonged moment.

"I—" she tries again.

"Hm?"

"I have—something to say."

"Oh?" Delicately, he mouths the clef of her ear. "Such as?"

"I think—I think I— _ohpleaseletmefinish_ —!"

He grinding into her on each upstroke—a deep, rhythmic torment that makes her tremble all over with that nearly-there yet never-going-to-come feeling that she hates as much as she loves. Her breaths stutter into sobs. Haji's fingers, dabbling between her thighs, go to her mouth. She sucks on them with a feverish intensity. At the same time, her body flexes around his. She wants this to go on forever, and yet she wants it to end so they can do it again, and then again, so next time is even better than the last. She wants to twist around and kiss him, recapturing with that touch the rightness she's lost since the war, and rediscovered only in his arms.

More than anything, she wants to _tell_ him, about the secret her chest is bursting with, something fizzy and palpable and unnamable and that she must share as surely as they share a heartbeat.

 _Love._

 _I think… I'm in love._

Goosebumps rise. Her heart lurches behind her ribs. It isn't terror. It is shock at the naturalness of the fitting, like her sword in her hand, or Haji's shape surrounding her. Effortless epiphany. Sunlight paints a brilliant inlay across the walls, and the glow replicates itself in her body, an outpouring of brightness. Her lips part, yet what unfurls is the opposite of speech.

Laughter.

"Saya?"

Haji draws his face is alongside hers. She meets his gaze with a wavery smile, and puts a hand up to cup his cheek. The skin there is ridged with scars, yet marble-fine. The most beautiful texture in the world. Gently, he covers her hand with his own. Familiar fingers twining with hers, a grip whose steadiness belies the tremor in his muscles, the pretense of power falling away, his body a plaything for her to touch and taste and take.

Except her own need for him is just as strong. A river of love, carrying their bodies in the same direction.

"What is it?" Haji whispers.

She smiles, and ripples playfully around him. He groans, the vibrato passing through his chest into hers. " _Saya_."

Giggling, she does it again, a rolling undulation. Loving the way his eyes fall shut and his mouth drops open—euphoria with an edge of desperation. His hands are skimming her body the same way: restless, rapturous, relentless. Then his palm goes between her thighs again, fingertips and the rocking heel, so she cries out against the dizzying pull of her own climax.

"I-I—"

"Tell me." His hands and body work their magic, coaxing her to the edge and holding her there. "Saya. Tell me."

She bites her lip around a smile. Inside, there is a tiny fear, leftover from the war, that none of this is real. That catastrophe will swoop in, that the sky will fall, that his hand will stop stroking and snatch her by the throat.

Nothing happens.

There is only the sunlight creeping across the bedsheets, and the enfolding heaviness of Haji's body around her. His heartbeat shivers through his skin.

She can feel him holding his breath.

"It's a secret," she says, and, turning her head, she whispers it into his ear.

* * *

As a highschooler, she'd spun dozens of elaborate scenarios for how Mister Right (nameless, faceless, gormless) would confess to her. _I love you_ , and the sparkling fall of moonlight on a seaside kiss. _I love you_ , and a single rose tucked tenderly behind her ear. _I love you_ , and fireworks, applause, a balcony serenade.

With Haji, there was none of that. _I love you_ , he said, and it was like despair racing to fill her heart like blood to a gash. And afterward, the plummeting mass of the ceiling, the plumage of flames, the sequence of explosions so intense they echoed for hours afterward in the chambers of her skull.

Devastation within moments of resurrection. Her love story found, then lost.

Until now.

 _I love you,_ she whispers. And there is the short-circuited glow in Haji's eyes, the jitter in his breath. For a moment, he reads her face in the sunlight. But they've never needed more than a heartbeat for that. So then he reaches, across the incandescent air between them, and kisses her. His soft sob goes through her entire body.

No roses, no fireworks, no applause.

Just an extraordinary secret spilled on a perfectly ordinary day.

Saya thinks about it afterward, between classes and sparring lessons. _Love_. The ordinariness and extraordinariness of it. It is a lifeline, yet also an incidental exchange. The word changes nothing. By the time it is spoken, it is already too late. The emotions have sunk to the bone.

And the emotions, the wild gusts of worship between her and Haji, are mutual now. There is no hiding it. It is like an involuntary muscle, keeping time to Haji's proximity, dousing her brain with dopamine everytime their eyes meet, making her stupidly, softheartedly girlish in the most commonplace ways. She wants to do things for him, little and big. She wants to make plans and buy presents, fix him perfect blood-dripping meals, poach his small circle of friends and make them hers, plaster over past mistakes they've made and plot out new adventures they've not shared, and others they need to share again, over and over, until they get it just right.

 _I love you,_ her head sings to itself on replay. _I love you, I love you._

Usually, Haji is good at keeping her grounded. Hitting the brakes, bringing the parachutes etc. Except he is too tipsy himself on their newfound happiness. Lately he walks around in a daze, his expression blissed-out the way certain deep-sea divers look at Miyakojima beach, awed by what they've witnessed in the ocean's depths. She reads paragraphs of subtext in his eyes whenever she crosses a crowded room, or in the possessive indolence of his hand on the small of her back when they stroll together, or in the wicked poetry of his lovemaking that prolongs itself past dawn.

Most telling of all is his music. Compositions blossom from his hand and come alive on the cello all evening; there is a zesty energy in the music that helixes in the air and shatters in brilliantly-colored orbits, imprinting the villa with raw desire. Saya comes across original or reworked masterpieces jotted down in the strangest places—on envelopes, stickynotes, grocery receipts, old newspapers.

By December, Haji takes calls from old colleagues and key players in the music industry, and is less averse to attending festivals and concerts. His reappearance on the celebrity radar triggers a fresh onslaught of media attention. Saya, disconcerted, has to navigate popping flashbulbs and paparazzi tailing them on sidewalks, or outside supermarkets and restaurants.

Haji, on his part, ignores them the way he does anything else: implacably. Sometimes they play mean-spirited games: walking hand-in-hand in sight of the photographer's cameras, then vanishing at Chiropteran speed before the shutters snap. Or entering stores or movies as recognizably Saya and Haji, and exiting as unrecognizable strangers: two teenaged girls, an ageing couple, a mother and son.

Afterwards, sharing the newspaper and a pot of coffee at breakfast, they smirk at the tabloid stories: " _Body-doubles... secret exits in the theater... decoys to throw off press..."_

"Rubbish and a waste of paper," Haji says.

The mixers for the _New Viennnese Philharmonic_ expose her to the glitters and gallows of fame, too. Predictably, she finds she cares little for it. _Born to reign yet allergic to the limelight_ , Haji sometimes teases. During music festivals, she inevitably melts to the quietest corners, not a wallflower but a gravity-well, pulling a certain breed of people into her space: war veterans, world travelers, cancer survivors, asylum seekers.

People who've seen the edge of life—and sanity—and know what matters most.

They have more frequent run-ins with Nathan, too, and from heavyweight producers in the industry. She enjoys introducing herself to them as Haji's mentor, rather than his fiancée. Perches beside her Chevalier on the arm of the sofa during meetings in the villa, an arm draped across his shoulders, petting him like a pale blue-eyed husky, while the gentlemen size her up uneasily, this wannabe Yoko Ono who reads his contracts as closely as his fan-mail, while Haji just glances at her with dry mischief in his gaze.

The _Philharmonic_ are planning a three-month tour of Europe, on a grander scale than anything they've attempted since their original disbanding. Haji is reluctant, but with some gentle encouragement from Saya, signs on.

It is nonstop travel and grueling hours. She knows it will take him away for weeks. Knows she'll miss him intolerably.

Yet somehow it's different this time. Like the wheels of their lives are finally in motion, spinning side by side.

Equal.

By springtime, while Haji is overseas, she keeps herself busy. It no longer feels like a chore but a natural state of being. She keeps a close correspondence with August on overseas developments from IBM-UAWA. She spars with the students at the dojo, her smile that of a playful wildcat, skin glowing with sweat. Sitting in class, she soaks up the lectures with a clear-headed focus, and giggles afterwards with friends about movies, quizzes, shopping. In the solarium, she nurtures her blue roses with reverence, her fingertips caressing petals that are perfect as a baby's skin.

Her appetite burgeons, too. She spends evenings with Kai at Omoro, making dozens of dishes. Sizzling skilletfulls of _champuru_. Huge bowls of rich steaming octopus broth. Fluffy morsels of tempura. Steaks thick as dictionaries and marbled in fat, served with toasty brown jacket potatoes overflowing with cheddar cheese and curls of green onions. She dolls up for girls'-nights-out with Sayumi and Sayuri, going to clubs, galleries, cafes, malls, the three of them talking, talking, talking. She speaks constantly with Haji on the phone, sends him naughty texts and naughtier photos. She fetches bridal catalogs, poring over ivory avalanches of gowns, veils, satin slippers.

Often, she meditates. When the katas, roses and _champuru_ can't settle her mind. When aimlessness still judders through her at a wild voltage, and she wants to tear her hair and scream. In those times, she retreats into herself at the beach. Stays still, exhaling the ugliness out. She imagines her favorite rock, the blue waves breaking into lacy foam across its stolid darkness.

She imagines _being_ that rock.

Still whole after centuries of erosion.

Time unfolds, and she understands there are different dimensions of life. Of love. Different compartments of herself that can flourish, even as other remain locked up tight.

She still thinks of Diva, and the memory still ices and burns her blood. Yet it feels easier, day by day, to leave Diva in the past.

* * *

Then one night—after many nights—she dreams of her sister, and the dark slither of a blue-eyed snake. Its whisper fills her skull with a shock of déjà vu.

 _Saya..._

* * *

 _Way to end the chapter on a cheerful note :)_

 _Translations of the Russian and French:_

 _Gorko: Directly translates to 'bitter.'_

 _Vovse-net: No such thing/not at all._

 _Cela réchauffe leur sang et fait bouillir leur cerveau: It warms the blood and boils the brains._

 _Mais c'est Novembre: But it's November._

 _Alors vous êtes juste une succube: So you're just a succubus._

 _Next installment hits two weeks from now! Review, pretty please!_


	37. Love

_E_ _arly update - largely because my weekend will be a mess of busy-ness! Picking up one year after the disastrous events of Act II, with Saya's life finally achieving a semblance of sanity... at least until Tórir comes crashing back in. This chapter is very much the calm before the storm, as the action and supernatural elements will kick into highgear in the next few installments, and not let up until the story is done and dusted :)_

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Your comments continue to be marvelous pick-me-ups for blah days!_

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

The musclebound Marine pirouettes like a ballerina—

Just before a fist smashes across his jaw.

" _Owshit_!"

The blow rocks him backward, his body colliding against the pub's swinging doors. A creak of hinges, a gust of wind, and he reels drunkenly out into the streets. Moonlight ghosts off the neighborhood: buildings and trees silvered as if beneath a sheet of aluminum. The calm before the monsoon season.

"Gonna fuck you up, bro."

Kai's voice is deathly soft. His slow footfalls echo across the pavement.

The Marine, panting for breath, grabs the edge of a parked car and hauls himself up. Rage pumps out of him; a toxic combination of testosterone and tequila.

A combination Kai has learnt quickly to deal with.

"Policy number one." Kai cracks his knuckles. "No hard liquor."

He strolls past Omoro's gates. The puddles at the sidewalk, opaque under the sheen of moonlight, reflect his easygoing face.

"Policies two through four." He ticks them off his fingers. "No tableflipping. No twerking. _No touching the waitresses_."

A spool of bloody saliva dangles off the Marine's lips. Slurring a curse, he wipes it off. In the next blink, he lunges. His fists fly like cue balls— _tsssh tsssh tsssh_. It's the shove-and-slug style that works against unskilled bar-brawlers and bawling baby-mommas.

Not here.

Kai doesn't lash out. He evades in a series of casual feints. One-step, two-step, circle, sidestep. _Jesus_. Even with ten shots of tequila in his system, this guy's _slow_. What's he got in his damn feet? Cement?

 _Time to finish this._

Torquing his body, Kai steps inside the Marine's looping punch. Hooks him, down and dirty, with a single fist to the kidney. The man's breath escapes on a gout of stale alcohol. He slumps to his hands and knees, choking on gutfuls of obscenities.

Kai watches, and shakes his head.

"Beat it, okay? You've had enough."

The Marine shows him vile eyes of vengeance—

—before hurling a sludge of puke across the sidewalk.

Kai sighs.

 _I'll take that as a 'Yeah.'_

When he returns to Omoro, the regulars are lounging at the entrance. There are rueful high-fives. The tote board shows the betting lines—15:1. No surprise. The whole exchange was less a beat-down than a physics lesson. Introducing Sgt. Gropy McGroperson to the Einsteinium tenets of cause and effect.

At the kitchen sink, Kai rinses off his hands. He's barely broken into a sweat. His knuckles, flecked with the stranger's blood, are unmarked. _Thick skin,_ Dad used to say. Sometimes he joked that Kai must've come steamrollering out of his mommy that way: raging and ready to rumble.

That belligerent core of Kai's personality remains intact. But after Yumi and Yuri, he's learnt to balance it out, carrying inside him an expanding layer of calm.

At his elbow, the waitresses—Keiko and Megumi—hover uncertainly.

"Should we, uh, call the police?" Keiko asks.

"Don't be silly."

"But what if he comes back?"

"He'd better not." Kai dries off with a towel. "I'll kick his teeth in."

"But—"

"Don't sweat." He flashes a reassuring smile. "I'll give you a ride later."

Mollified, they relax. "Thanks, Kai!"

"Yeah, yeah."

He is already opening cabinets to get out extra plates. They're shorthanded tonight. The kitchen is a hotbed of activity: cooks wielding pans of fry-up, the calls of the servers cut through with the clatter of crockery. The scents in the air—the tart sweetness of tangerines, the salty pungency of pickled shrimp, the sharpness of basil—stir fond memories for Kai.

He'd learnt most of Omoro's recipes from between Dad's knees. Hell, he's still got the old man's dog-eared cookbook in a shelf upstairs. Kai rarely touches it: he's long-ago memorized the measurements for a perfect plate of _champuru_.

Speaking of—

"Hiro! Where's the entrees!" Kai claps his hands. "C'mon! Set 'em out!"

Hiro, in a tender colloquy with his cellphone: " _Gah_! I haven't unloaded them, boss!"

"For chrissakes, Hiro! Get started! We need two batches ready in the next twenty minutes!"

Already, the blip of violence has faded. In its place is dictator-dad in his domestic-domain: an apron to tie on and a job to do.

"Keiko, the guava smoothies are done!"

" _Right-o_!"

"Megumi, run the Yakiniku to table #15!"

" _Hai_!"

Soon the restaurant descends into its natural state: controlled chaos. It's a busy night, the kind that makes Kai feel like a DJ at the club: shuffling dinner plates, expediting tickets, mixing and matching ingredients. The soundtrack is sisyphean sweetness: a haze of sizzling steam overlaying the swears of the staff: "Shitfuckpiss! Table #3 sent back his _udon_!" "You call that sour cream? It looks like an old fart's _shiofuki_!" "Fuckin' A! Who's running the pass?" "Yo, Hiro! _Bukkake_ on the _batamochi_!"

Pouring a whisked-egg mixture into the frying pan, Kai smiles into the spiraling smoke. In the thirty years since he's taken over Omoro, he's renovated the place three times. The latest remodeling stint was the kitchen: closed off behind a traditional _bingata_ mural. He's never liked the belljar sensation of open kitchens. Too many eyeballs on you 24/7.

Hygiene isn't the issue. As a rule, his kitchen is spotless. The problem is the cussing. In Kai's experience, the cooks are rarely as clean as the counters.

" _Tsukkomu_! Is old man Yamada hogging the men's room again?"

"Pffft! _Mata toire de chinchin o shikoshiko surun ja nai ka!_ "

By closing time, everyone is shiny-faced and exhausted. Kai scrubs his hands through his hair, ruffling them into smoke-scented spikes. He enjoys the blown-apart atmosphere of Afterward: the blatting stereo system switched off, the lamps dimmed, Megumi sweeping the floors while Keiko waxes the tables. In the kitchens, leftovers are being packaged and distributed among the staff.

Policy number five. No one walks out of Omoro hungry.

"G'night everybody," Kai says, to a chorus of tired goodnights in turn. To Keiko and Megumi: "Lemme grab my keys."

"It's cool." Keiko unties her apron. "Megumi's brother agreed to pick us up."

"Huh. You sure?"

"Positive. Thanks for taking care of that creep." Megumi bats her lashes. "World's best boss!"

Kai crooks a brow. "You're not getting a raise, Megumi."

"Aw, fucksticks!"

"Especially not with that potty mouth."

"...F-F-Fish sticks?"

"Better." He cricks his neck. "Now if you could stop writing _'Dried Funguidani_ ' on Mrs. Miyagi's order chits..."

Keiko pouts, "She's mean to us!"

Megumi huffs, "And yesterday she said we dressed like strippers!"

Kai stays diplomatically silent.

Policy number six. Servers can dress to please—or displease.

He waits until Megumi's brother arrives in his old-fangled Audi. Watches the girls pile into the car and wave goodbye, before he flips the CLOSED sign on the door.

" _Whew_."

Kai flexes the day's tension from his shoulders. Thirty years since he's taken over Omoro, and the pressure of time exerts itself in the slyest ways: the ache in his joints and the throb in his muscles most noticeable when the nights wax long.

Aging comes with its stretches of discomfort—plenty of them, actually. But these moments, the subtle geometry of the empty bar almost Zen-like, have never lost their appeal.

Kai's life remains tied to this place. To Okinawa, and its grounded spirit of resilience. It's a small, low-key existence compared to the war. But it's the kind Kai prefers.

Even if, life being what it is, and him being who _he_ is, things still get a little crazy.

Leaving the lamps off, Kai goes upstairs. Plays his favorite jazz album at a neighborly volume, while he strips off and showers. Under the nozzle, he lets the sluicing heat melt away the remains of the long day. The soap is pine charcoal, the kind the Miyagusukus have bought for ages. Cheap, dependable. Yumi and Yuri keep trying to get him fancier stuff: tea tree oils, rosemary shaving creams, slinky manicure kits.

 _Fashion is nothing to fear,_ they say—to his grumbles of _I know what works for me._

Lately though, he's more amenable to trying their organic crap. More amenable to a lot of stuff, prosaic habits abandoned in favor of novelty.

An upside of change. The big C.

Or a byproduct of love.

Dried and dressed, Kai wanders the subdued gold of the pub's interior. _Love_. A four-letter bombshell. It means little to him in the romantic scheme of things. He loves Sayumi and Sayuri. They know it; he knows it. It's there in how he expresses it: brash, pragmatic, goal-focused. Fixing them bowls of _udon,_ fine-tuning their motorbikes, lending them extra cash.

It's the love of a parent: powerfully life-sized, but also patently ordinary. History is crowded with everyday goalposts of parental devotion. It's a fact of life—or _ought_ to be.

Whereas love for a life-sized partner...

On reflex, Kai's eyes go to the mantelpiece. The edges of the mirror are stuck full of photos. Schoolyard pals, die-hard regulars, fun flings. Kai recognizes the unlicensed medic from Sapporo, who'd scotchtaped Kai's knuckles together after they'd split from a bar-fight, holding the bones intact while someone called an ambulance. He glimpses a boxer with one blind eye—the consequence of a lye fight in a Bangkok back-alley—who'd spent two years in Okinawa and taught Kai how to make the syrupiest _cha yen_ imaginable. He spots an old Iraq vet, a zany brunette fluent in every dialect of Arabic across the Middle East, who'd favored summer dresses and nightly games of darts between ribald political rants.

And he glimpses Mao. Summer of 2005. The two of them in line for a movie. _Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang._ Their first date: two teenagers hopped up on hormones. Back when Kai's idea of sophistication was filching scented cologne ads from Dad's GQ's, and the _zettai ry_ _ō_ _iki_ beneath Mao's miniskirts was worthy of a dozen dirty ballads.

They were an ill-matched cliché from the start. Hotheaded delinquent + rebellious _yakuza_ heiress = fireworks of catastrophe. But to cop a lyric from a Bryan Adams song, " _We were young and restless/We needed to unwind_."

She's married now. Hubby, two kids, a crime syndicate. A catastrophe on her own terms.

 _Irony_ , Kai thinks, _thou art a quirky bitch._

There are other pictures on the mantelpiece. Thirty years' worth of snapshots, each one a colorful ripcurl of memory. Old polaroids of Dad and Riku. Highschool snaps of Saya. The photobooth square from the siblings' doomed Paris trip. Portraits of Sayumi and Sayuri as babies. Exuberant crayon drawings from their toddlerhood. Glossy reprints from school festivals and graduation ceremonies. There is even a silver-framed snap with Haji. New Year's night, post-mission, at a smoky pub in London. The Chevalier looks the same: his black suit of faultless cut, his posture at once resolute and regal. Like a broody supermodel or an epicene crumb of the upper crust—except for those street-sharp eyes that mark him as neither. Yumi and Yuri cling to his arms, giggly and twinkly-eyed, their champagne flutes aloft. The photo, a decade old, could've been taken yesterday.

In another century, they'll remain unchanged. Whereas Kai will already be dust.

Kai straightens the photo, then smiles at himself. When did he stop being a careless kid with time to waste?

 _Welcome to adulthood._

He's tiptoed across the red line by irreversible degrees. On the other side, the wild-card days of the war should carry a nostalgic sheen.

They don't. The war remains a stain on his psyche. He savors it only for its lessons in survival. For its life-savers in the shape of Sayumi and Sayuri.

And Saya.

Kai's eyes fall on the latest photos in the picturescape.

The first is a triptych: Sayumi, Sayuri, and Saya at the majestic greenness at Katsuren castle, their traditional Ryu-sou robes like butterflies, the sunlight catching in their glossy hairbuns. They look like triplets. Yumi's face is adorably squinched in its alarum of curls. Yuri is delicate as a soap bubble—her baby-bump ready to pop any week now.

And Saya...

Where the twins glow, she _burns_.

It trips Kai out. She's always been cute. A cotton-candy type of cuteness: high on calories, low on substance. But now it's like she's grown into herself. The spaced-out shyness is gone. In its place is a physical solidity that is primal, powerful. She no longer sleepwalks through her days. She moves in a cutting stride with her head held high. Her smile has returned, but it isn't the sugary curl that Kai remembers from highschool. It is a blade unsheathed: a gleam that cuts to the bone.

Carefully, Kai lifts out the three-part frame.

Two years ago, when they'd first brought Saya home from the Miyagusuku tombs, a blank-faced moppet with an oil slick of dripping hair, he'd never imagined she'd turn out this way. The Awakening hasn't been easy for her. Or any of them. Her PTSD, her shakes, her silences... They were a point of outright paranoia for the family. After Joel's death, it got worse. First the miscarriage. Then her rejection of Haji. Then the plunge into the sea that could only be a suicide attempt.

There were times, last year, when Kai wasn't sure she'd make it. When he'd look into the black pockets of her eyes, and dread the worst.

Instead, she survived her ordeal, and achieved escape velocity.

The proof is in the pudding: a pretty photograph, a calendar full of Saya-plans, a cellphone full of Saya-texts. She trains at the dojo, her form and finesse top-notch. She takes classes at the university, and prattles about _Ikebana_ workshops and endangered eco-systems and unethical trade practices. They cook together on the weekends, and she lectures him on hypoallergenic foods and the political incorrectness of gendered toilets.

It drives Kai up the wall. It makes him glad.

He replaces the photo-frame beside its neighbor. Taken six months ago, at Saya and Haji's engagement dinner. The pair of them are perched together on the villa's swing-set: Saya in a rosy velvet frock that shows off her bare shoulders, Haji in a dark tweed suit that he manages to make look classically formal rather than dull.

Kai studies the photo, bittersweetness stirring. The snap is a rarity: usually Saya and Haji evade the camera like wild animals, all motion-blur and red-eye. Yet here they sit, picture perfect. In one frame, Saya's head is tossed back, mid-laughter, Haji's dark one buried in her neck, either in a wicked whisper or a kiss. In the other, their foreheads are together, gazes tangled as if there is nothing else in the world. They seem cut from the same design: sleek and secretive, with an aurora of the supernatural that you can't put your finger on.

That's another change. Saya and Haji. The newness (re-newness?) of them.

Before, their relationship was always closed-off. They were seldom demonstrative before company. In affection, or anger. Yet, like in the war, they always moved together. When she darted to the right, he'd angle to the left. When she tilted her head forty-degrees toward him, he'd replicate the arc in reverse, like the mechanism of his body hinged on her own.

It was almost a mirror-dance. Both of them in the same orbit, yet never touching.

That's changed. After their mysterious start as a couple, it's like they've fallen in love all over again. It's a daunting love—inspiring faith and fairytales. A spell of shared soppiness that can only be recreated in extraordinary circumstances.

It used to make Kai jealous as a teenager. Jealous of Saya and Haji's mutual focus. Jealous of how they seemed intimate to the exclusion of all else. But lately he's begun to feel a sympathy for them.

That type of love is a mind-fuck. A Möbius strip that changes shape by the minute: raw, heady, shockingly pure. It can be an exercise of trust. Or a downslide into disaster. But that's the deal.

Fall or fly—it is by your bare heart.

 _Thump_.

Kai's thoughts come unplugged. His auxiliary survival-mode kicks in.

Something's outside the pub. Barely audible. But Kai's hearing is fine-tuned after nightly Chiropteran hunts in the war.

"Who's there?"

It could be a bar-crawler. Or a homeless person. Or a cat.

The possibilities are limited. But it doesn't hurt to take precautions. Kai withdraws his gun from the mantel shelf. Keeping the safety on, he stows it in his pocket, and pads outside.

There. At the patio. A shape solidifies. The red ember of a cigarette floats in the dark.

Kai recognizes the scent of Parliaments, and relaxes. "Dee."

"You okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

She shoulders past the screen door. In the dim lamplight, her face is smooth and fine-sculpted, a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She's gotten some sun on her last mission overseas, and done a little something to her hair: a paler luster of blond streaks. Other than that, same old Dee.

"I was at Studio B," she says. "Heard there was a scuffle at your place."

Kai shrugs. "Just a moron getting handsy." He quirks a brow, alertness displaced by affection. "You keeping tabs on me?"

A blush creeps up Dee's neck. Tossing her hair, she plays it cool. "Your place is a walking bullseye. No security systems. Not even a wireless cam."

"You doubt my self-defense skills?"

"Hate to break it to you, tiger, but they've been in doubt since day one."

" _Oi_!" He dances back, fists popping in the air. "Those're fightin' words."

"Your favorite type." She dodges easily, sneaking a jab at his abs. "Must be fun living dangerously. Courting death-by- _daifuku_ every night..."

"I never touch 'em after 5 o' clock!"

"It's always 5 o' clock _somewhere_." She draws on her cigarette, smoke swirling. Her dimpling smile is a rarity. During missions, her usual manner, sedate yet steely, always makes her seem older than she is. It's a steeliness rooted in necessity, Kai knows. As the next David, she juggles responsibilities that go beyond jobs or dates or boyfriends.

Yet that makes the nights where she relaxes all the more stupidly sweet.

 _Jesus,_ Kai thinks _, I've got it bad_.

But that's the deal with love, isn't it? A four-letter bombshell. A Möbius strip that changes by the minute: intense, irritating, complex.

Solidifying the shape of his entire world.

Kai deals with the satori the best way he can. He snatches Dee's cigarette away.

" _Hey_!"

"You know policy number seven." He hangs the cig off his bottom lip. "No smoking indoors."

"I'll finish it outside!"

"Why not quit? You're ruining a perfect pair of lungs." He takes a thin drag. The filter tastes of mint lip-balm. The smoke itself is acrid: a foul fug like burnt leaves. " _Blech_. I'd rather eat an ashtray."

Dee's eyes hold his in wry challenge. "There's better things to eat."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"I'd tell you. But that'd violate, uhm, policy number eight?"

"Commission of public indecency." He looks her over, playfully speculative. "Is that what you've got in mind?"

She goes up on tiptoe, her lips fluttering against his ear. Kai stays still despite the twinge of pleasure at her scent—butterscotch and _Dee-_ ness that melts his braincells to pudding. The physical predictability is itself a thrill. Like all his favorite things—rays of late-afternoon sunlight, a bowl of white rice, charcoal pine soap and fresh laundered sheets—have condensed themselves into a hardbody he can hold and adore.

Which, weirdly, is true.

Dee smiles sidelong, as if sensing his thoughts. "Give back my smoke, and I'll reconsider."

"If I don't?"

"I'll haul you upstairs and violate every goddamn policy in your book."

Kai plucks out the cig. The cherry sputters out as he flicks it into the wastebin. His smile is innocent. But his encircling arms are anything but.

"That," he says, "sounds like fun."

* * *

Fuzhou Garden

2-29-19 Kume

Naha, Okinawa Prefecture

900-0033

Winter waxes into summer.

The tiny green buds in Saya's solarium have erupted into bloom. The brilliance of them leeches the color from everything else. A devilish red spray of diegos. Spiderwebbed yellow lariats of lily. The pinkish nymphaea of hibiscus.

And boughs of blue roses. Each one extravagantly fragrant and poetically pristine.

Each one a superstitious remnant of the past.

Walking down the cobbled paths at Fukushūen, Saya wears a blue rose tucked into her hair. Its sweetness fills her lungs with every breath. The sun is at its brightest, the clean geometry of tarpaulin canopies topped by limitless sky. Okinawa's annual flower carnival is in full swing. The place is packed: well-heeled tourists, college kids, families, elders. Beneath the shaded twilight of awnings, exotic flowers overflow, their ripened buds filling the air with clashing scents.

Saya's own arrangement is in the rear marquee. Pale dollops of moth-orchids knotted around the ornate hilt of a _tanto_. Neither the most elaborate nor the most elegant arrangement. But she's scored high for creativity.

Saya doesn't mind. Like when Haji's rendition of the _Fantaisie Impromptu_ falls into silence, the music ghosting around the wood-paneled room _,_ there is a single motif flowering in the design.

A seed of remembrance—but also renewal.

 _Diva._

Touching her blue rose, Saya thinks of the dream last night. The slither of snake. The susurrus of her name. The patterns and portents of danger.

It spreads through her, like the sensation before falling. In the next blink, she shakes it off.

She'll worry about it later. For now, it's a blessing to be outdoors, feeling the sun on her face like any Okinawan.

Beyond the gardens, a spit of land arrows into a pond with a splashing waterfall. People have appropriated the shady spots beneath the Chinese-style pagodas, chomping on skewers of barbecued _yakitori_. Children splash by the waterline under the watchful eyes of their parents.

Saya smiles.

A real smile, without heartache. Funny, she thinks. After the disaster in Karachi, the sight of children was a full-bodied agony. She'd found herself so often in that state, gripped by a sadness closer to fury. Someone—Julia? Dee?—told her it was natural. But she'd floated through those conversations on a fog, absorbing nothing.

Of course, she'd been foggy all the time, a cloud of regrets forming over her real self, holding all emotions under. In the months since she'd returned to Okinawa, she'd been half frozen.

Now the thaw has come in.

She walks along the paths in the center of the gardens, admiring the displays. A cool breeze stirs her dress around her legs, bought yesterday on a shopping trip with Yumi and Yuri. It is carnation-pink and sleeveless, with a deep V-neck and a cinched-in skirt that fans into pretty pleats above the knees.

Mens' eye linger on her. She lets them. Years ago, the attention would've flustered her. As a highschooler, there was one benefit in having an ex-Marine for a Dad and a hoodlum for a brother: no boyfriends. She'd had no interest in a relationship anyway. Her sense of self was too fragile. Besides, teenage culture transformed sex into a threshold for aesthetics more than intimacy.

She still recalls peeking furtively at herself in the bathroom mirror. She'd been worried about her breasts. Were they too small? Were the nipples a weird shape? Would a boy want to touch them? She couldn't imagine any classmate she'd like to touch her. She remembers reading about the cowgirl position in _Cosmo_ , and getting a secondhand burst of jitters, like stage-fright of the whole body. The thought of being on display for someone's judgement was terrifying.

It's why she'd preferred the ease of girl-to-girl friendships. The little jokes, the hassle-free hangouts, the touches you didn't read deeply into. Her time with Kaori revolved less around _Guy Gossip_ than in enjoying themselves.

Then the war tore through her life. And all the things she'd been storing up inside—desires, experiences, experiments—fell to the wayside. She'd picture them, at odd moments, like cardboard boxes left in the cellar. Mold and moisture seeping into them, turning them defunct.

Whereas nowadays, with Haji _…_

She blushes, but makes herself finish the thought.

Nowadays, her relationship with Haji is completely unlike the fancies she'd stored up inside. A precious currency that she'd trade for nothing else.

They've spent all of last year re-learning each other. Re-learning _love_ , and shaping it to suit them instead of the other way around.

She's come to share his reproof of the word's overuse: _I love smoked octopus. Everyone loves soba. Love is a Pat Benatar song._ Sweeter than its euphonics is the non-verbal: a smile, a shoulder-squeeze, a shared glance.

She's learnt more about Haji too. The old-fashioned idiosyncrasies of his devotion. His astonishing yet equally idiosyncratic dislike of… not tradition, but conventionality. The triteness of romantic films. The cutesy dictates of calendar occasions. The performative _#relationshipgoals_ culture that kills true passion. More meaningful for him are gifts given for no reason at all: kindness, kisses, switchblades, symphonies. From him, she's learning sincerity without the self-protection. So it's only fair that she save the brightest hues of her happiness for him.

After everything he's given her, it's the least she can do.

Today, he finishes the _Philharmonic's_ overseas tour. Saya has kept busy in the interim. But his absence has been a state of bottled-up deprivation, sensual dehydration.

They don't let a day elapse without keeping in touch. He sends her ironic snaps of himself in makeup chairs before concerts: Hollywood lights a-blaze, hair in rollers, the clean-boned structure of his face a study of masculine aesthetics. She shows him videos of karaoke nights: harmonizing to Delibes' _Flower Duet_ with Yumi and Yuri, before breaking into pop anthems by circa-2006 Christina Aguilera. He shares historic monuments outside his hotel rooms: the Brandenburg Gate, the Hungarian Parliament building, the Hofburg. She sends him rose-lit snaps in vintage lingerie: silk-screened corsets and ribboned stockings and pantalettes with tiny embroidered rosebuds. Late at night, they exchange flirty chitchat, never straying as far as phone sex, but when she slips between the cool sheets afterwards, her body is always hot as a _quinquet_.

Connections wired between their bodies, working their own magic.

On cue, her cellphone chirps. Saya lifts it to her cheek as if nuzzling a kitten.

"Hello?"

"Saya," Haji says, his voice carrying a quiet thrum of warmth across the airwaves.

She melts by degrees. "Very funny."

"What?"

"You always call when I'm thinking of you."

"I do?" There is a soundtrack of airports at his end. But if Saya shuts her eyes, he is right _here_ , his dark shape a masthead, the steady blueness of his stare an anchor. "Synchronicity, perhaps."

"Or telepathy." A tiny smile. "You sound so close. Like you're right beside me."

"I would rather be." The very ordinariness of the remark is a confession: illusionless. "I am in Tokyo for our final stopover."

"How many hours until you're back?"

"Three. Perhaps four."

"Mm."

By old habit, she tries not to show her restless anticipation. But her whole body is caught in a giddy aftershock like during...

 _Oops._ Naughty thoughts.

"Are you alone?" Haji asks, an octave lower than usual.

"Um. No." Her face heats in a way that has nothing to do with the sunshine. "I'm at the flower carnival."

"Ah." A thoughtful pause. " _J'allais vous... parler de dire des obscénités_."

The heat becomes a scorcher: self-consciousness, excitement. " _C'est imprudent_."

" _Vraiment?"_

" _Tu ne peux… pas joindre le geste à la parole."_

She hears a tiny, unequivocal rush of breath. "I will. Once I return."

"I hope so." Her ear, pressed against phone, tingles as if kissed. "I, um, watched your performance at Salzburg yesterday. You were wearing the ring."

"You noticed."

"Me, and the gossip columns."

All hell had broken loose with the media. There were magazines lined up at every supermarket. _He said 'Yes'! Philharmonic's Haji Confirms He is Engaged!_ — _One Day, But Not Today! Sources Deny Haji's Secret Wedding.—"He Likes His Privacy": Sources Spill the Deets in Tell-All Interview._ His well-publicized social media accounts (manned by PR staff, never him) posted a tasteful announcement, while limiting personal exposure of his fiancée. Passions ran high among fangirls on Twitter— _"These two are cute af together anybody saying otherwise is a hater don't at me!" "Ughhh! She is so dull traditionally Japanese! Probs a gold-digger! " "Godbless! Their babies gon be bomb!"_

There were prowling paparazzi outside hotels and inevitable car chases. She thinks of photos in news articles: Haji exiting airports in city after city, dressed in a dark overcoat and sunglasses (a Hollywood affectation he otherwise disdained) to ward off the flashbulbs. She thinks of when he let slip a deadpan " _C'est quoi ce bordel_?" at the mass of microphones shoved into his face, and the internet gleefully giffed it to infinity. Yesterday, she and the twins saw a leaked Instagram video: a journalist shouting backstage after a performance to see Haji's ring, and Haji saluting with the long middle-finger of his upraised right hand.

Saya and the twins had cackled endlessly.

"Perhaps we should lie low," Haji says. "Until the media storm quiets."

"You think it will?"

"Something more salacious always rolls along."

"So, what? We're tabling the wedding until my next Awakening?"

She is only teasing. But a stunned "..." comes down the line. Then: "We will marry today if you wish."

"Fresh off the plane?"

"There is a civil court near the airport. We could—"

"I can't believe you!" A high-pitched cry of desolation. "Robbing me of my bridal finery!"

Haji's silence goes brittle with dread. It is all Saya can do to repress her laughter. The stoicism he wields like a blade always shatters at the merest hint of waterworks from her. So strange, how she has him on her string, yanking him from pillar to post whenever it suits her.

Then again, he has his string too. And it tugs at her heart, twining around it, growing roots.

A pink floret she carries everywhere.

"You know I'm joking, right?" she whispers.

"You are certain? Because we can—"

" _Haji_." Her lips brush the phone. "Just get home."

"Home." The softness of his voice wells up in her ear. "It's been a long time since I have had that."

"For me too." She doesn't just mean the villa. "We built it together."

"We will go on building it."

"Mm. But it doesn't need to be complicated. The wedding. The ceremony. That's all window dressing." A shy waver. "All I need is you."

His sigh is heartbreakingly glad. "I love you, Saya."

It passes between on a heat-current them. Technology a conduit for truth.

Saya bites her lip. "I should go."

"Hm."

"Be—be careful. Stay away from fangirls."

Haji's half-smile is audible. "Even the pretty ones?"

"Especially! Victoire promised to tell me if she catches you with one."

" _C'est un complot féminin_."

" _Comme on dit, tu l'as mérité_."

He exhales a laugh. Then his voice deepens, desire indistinguishable from pledge. "You already know I am yours."

"I-I do." She swallows, throat tight. "It's just that, sometimes I think of you. All alone. And it's worse than if you were in a room full of beautiful people. I think of what you could have. What I've taken from you. And _keep_ taking from you."

 _Every Long Sleep._

She doesn't say it. But she calendars her sunlit days from that single dark date: unknown, inevitable. It is already June. Three years are halfway done. Her life is in full bloom. But her time keeps escaping like sand at the bottom of the hour glass. Everything will soon be the second-last time. Second-last family barbecue. Second-last swim at the beach. Second-last shopping-spree with Yumi and Yuri. Second-last cooking experiment with Kai.

Second-last moment—of softness, of silence—with Haji.

Unless she breaks the sequence. Asks Nathan for a second tincture for daughters. And prays that it takes.

They stay connected by that possibility now, the momentary shiver of emotion passing between them.

Then Haji says, "We will be together soon, Saya."

After his flight. After her next Long Sleep. With the godsend of daughters and thirty years together, or without. The places are different, yet near enough in the slipstream of life that the difference is meaningless. _You and I. Then. Now._

 _Always_.

They say their goodbyes, and Saya tucks her phone back in her purse.

She catches Tórir's mismatched eyes as she turns. He's been standing there, and she hadn't noticed.

"What—? _Oh_!"

"Miss Saya!"

"Mr. Tórir." It is a snowflake touching the nape of her neck. Goosebumps bloom. "You startled me."

"Apologies. I spotted you in the crowd. Simply wanted to say hello."

"I-I see."

She pulls her scattershot senses together. Before him, she'd been thinking about Haji, about her Long Sleep, about sex, about the snake in her dream. There seems a message hidden there, like a box within a box.

She ignores its lure.

In the sunlight, Tórir's hair glows in an autumnal-red corona, his skin brilliantly pale. Wherever he'd spent last year, it wasn't in Okinawa. The Caucasians are typically brown as chestnuts by springtime. Even Haji, before he'd jetted off, had acquired a muted golden glow: almonds and ivory.

Yet the pallor isn't off-putting. He wears it with an aristocratic sleekness—the same as his suit, a well-cut linen in royal blue, with a white shirt and silk tie. The attire, seamless, is almost a second skin. The memory of this same man with scuffed sandals and a bagful of books at the marketplace is difficult to summon. So much has happened since then.

Saya manages a smile. "Off to conquer Wall Street?"

He blushes, a boyish inflammation from the roots of his hair to the collar of his shirt. "I just got back from a medical conference."

"On heart attacks?" Her smile becomes a tease. _You certainly gave me one._

He claps a palm to his brow. "I _am_ sorry! I always sneak up on you."

"You do."

It's disconcerting. There aren't many people who can get the jump on her. Unless they're…

"It's been a year since I saw you last." Tórir's eyes rove across her: taking note of the brightness of her eyes, the dark luster of her untied hair, the smooth layer of muscle on her arms and thighs. His expression softens, appreciative. "You look lovely."

"Um. Thank you." She draws herself up a bit self-consciously. "Are you enjoying the exhibition?"

"Of course! All these flowers..." He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the mélange of scents. "My favorite is the _Obake_ section."

" _Obake_?" The word means shapeshifter, or more loosely, an aberration. "Where's that?"

"You haven't seen?!" His two-toned eyes give off a live-wire luminescence. "It is extraordinary!"

"What is?"

He gestures her to follow. Saya hesitates, then obeys.

Tórir heads toward the corner marquee. It stands off the main pathway—away from the crowds. Dome-shaped and plain, its greenness blends with the greenness of the treeline. A peculiar scent leeches from inside, sweetish, sour, leaving a taste like decay on the tongue.

Saya frowns. "What is…?"

He lifts the flap at the entrance. "Nothing to fear. Iway earsway."

She shoots him a look, then steps inside.

" _Oh_!"

Tórir chuckles. "Like I said."

The air is moist inside the marquee. The ceiling is outfitted with a misting system that hazes the atmosphere at intervals. Droplets gather in hers and Tórir's hair, furring the fabric of their clothes.

It reminds Saya of being inside the chamber of a vast green heart: each pulsebeat full of liquid _life_.

 _Life_ as a carnival catastrophe: every eccentricity of Mother Nature on technicolor display. A massive Devil's Tooth of oozing whiteness flecked with shiny pustules of red. Skeleton Flowers with petals of such icy translucence that she can see the eerie calligraphy of their veins. Firework Pincushions of eye-bruising orange helixing outward, like the imprints of galaxies conjured by drunkards. Spidery stalks of white erupting from the winged black carapace of Bat Plants. The spectral silhouettes of a Hanging Man Orchid, all limbs and skulls in anemone paleness that Saya would never glimpse except at the bottom of the sea. The electrified whorls of Passion Flowers, each purple pinwheel shot through with squiggle-legged threads like confetti. The tentacles of an Octopus Stinkhorn at twisting angles, the sight as enigmatic as a Kraken rising from the deep.

"God." Saya stares in awe. "This is _incredible_."

Tórir gives her the eyebrow. "More interesting than run-of-the-mill _Ikebana_?"

"Ten times over."

She traces a finger along the spiked petals of a pink blossom. Its leaves shrink at her proximity, one by one, as neatly as wings furling shut.

" _Mimosa piduca_ ," Tórir says. "Touch-me-nots. They evolved this mechanism to evade herbivores."

"You're an expert in botany now?"

"What? _No_!" He points sheepishly at the laminated info-sheet. "Just hoping to impress you."

A blush colors Saya's face. "There's, um, no need for that."

"Yet I keep trying." His grin is cheeky, eyes gleaming slyly. "Truth be told, I've studied some of these plants. The discipline of toxicology is one of my hobbies outside of work."

"Toxicology?"

"Poisons. And just as often palliatives."

He draws her attention to a single bloom emerging from a bed of wide green fronds. It is unusually-shaped: like a pair of lips, plump, fleshy, succulently red. An obscene invitation.

" _Psychotria elata_ ," Tórir says. "Known informally as Whore's Lips."

"It looks… dangerous."

"Why do you say that?"

She frowns. "Maybe the color. Blood red. Like a warning."

Tórir smiles lopsidedly. Kneels and fits his mouth to the flower: a slow, soft, secretive kiss. When it breaks, he stays close, inhaling its spicy scent.

"Not poisonous at all," he murmurs. "In the rainforest, it is used to cure lung infections. A literal kiss of life." He sighs. "Tragically, most of its habitat is lost due to deforestation."

"I-I didn't realize."

He goes on staring at the flower, his breaths stirring it. Saya stares in turn at his profile: the full mouth, palely pink against the red daubs of petals.

Exactly like Diva's.

Déjà vu congeals through her, like something unfixed in memory…

"It is the same with the other exhibits," Tórir continues, still kneeling. "Most are endangered. The last of their kind. Half miracles, half myths." His blue-red gaze gathers hers. "Not all are conventionally pretty. But they are survivors. They thrive where most living things cannot."

"Like your _habu_ vipers."

"Exactly!" A smile edges his lips. "The viper's venom may be hemotoxic. But like this flower, it is a treasure chest of knowledge. Not only does studying it allow scientists to understand nature's destructive gifts, but also how to harness them for beneficial treatment."

"Healing through destruction?"

"Why not?" An expression flits across his face that she can't parse. "Breakdown is sometimes necessary for breakthrough."

 _For becoming._

She hadn't believed that, when Diva was gone. Life felt like an affront. How could she breathe, much less know happiness, when her sister had suffered so? Had made others suffer? The miserable wrongness of it encompassed all she was, a breakage of the self.

Reclaiming it was a painstaking process, composed of wins and losses on a personal scale, the mapwork towards healing impossible to trace.

Yet it happened, against all odds, and her life has flourished. Flowered into a delicate balance of grief and joy.

She can't tell Tórir that. But when their eyes meet, his are strangely pensive, with something darker at their depths.

"Beautiful," he says.

"Wh-what?"

"The blue rose in your hair."

"Oh." Disorientation makes her pulse stutter. Her hand goes to the blossom. "It's a special dye."

It's an easier lie to sell than the truth. To this day, there is no such thing as a blue rose.

Tórir wears a hooded, enigmatic look. "It is very convincing. May I?"

Politeness tangles with instinct: _You may not._ Yet she inclines her head, and Tórir places his hand (cool, broad, smooth) on her crown, tracing his fingertips across the petals.

"Beautiful," he repeats. " _In the driest whitest stretch/of pain's infinite desert…_ "

Saya finishes the stanza. _"I lost my sanity/and found/this rose._ "

Tórir blinks in delight. "You have been reading Rumi!"

"Your gift was… interesting."

"I am glad you found it so. It was useful for filling the shank of an afternoon." He sighs. "I remember another poem that left an impression."

"I'm listening."

Tórir smiles and shuts his eyes, as if to summon the lines from memory, _"I want a trouble-maker for a lover/blood spiller, blood drinker/a heart of flame/Who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate/Who burns like fire/on the rushing sea_."

Saya lets a few beats of silence go by, just to soak up the words. He doesn't recite by rote, like a schoolmaster. He speaks like someone who was tutored from leather-bound anthologies in another century. There is elegance in his syntax, each line rolling off effortlessly. A beguilement that burns the skin.

"That's, um," she blushes. "Lovely."

"Not mine." His mismatched eyes meet hers. "Another by Rumi."

She is aware of his proximity. Aware of his scent: sweat, cologne, and beneath that, a rich effervescence almost like the fjords. The most familiar thing she's ever smelled.

The most unsettling.

Saya clears her throat. "I should—"

 _Get going,_ she means to say. But Tórir's fingers drop to the hollow of her throat. Her skin prickles as if a blade is poised there. Terror or thrill?

"Your pulse is going mad," he murmurs.

"I—"

"Are you well? No poetry swoons, I hope?"

"No..."

She tries a feeble smile that falters at the last moment. Why does he always have such an intense effect on her? It is like a sickness she should long be immune to.

"I have a confession to make," Tórir says then.

"What?"

"After our last meeting, I searched for you." He features grow sheepish—or faux-sheepish—even as his eyes shine with bright scrutiny. "I know it is improper. And yet, I wanted to see you again."

"See me?"

Saya finds herself immobilized under his stare, as if Tórir is a basilisk who has trapped her in his sightlines. As she watches, he inches gracefully closer, a smooth slither of muscles.

"I cannot explain it," he says. "There is something… something about you that is like a riddle. It makes me want to learn more. To know you in every way. I do not mean in bed. Although—" A crooked smile. "I will not deny the bed has crossed my mind."

Suddenly, Saya can barely breathe over the alarm-bell of her pulse.

"Mr. Tórir—"

"Please. Just Tórir."

"Tórir." Her tongue burns as the name passes it. "I'm flattered, but—"

"I would not press my suit, either, if I did not think you liked me a little."

The presumption is an itch, fiery-hot and too true for comfort. To shake the feeling, she mocks it.

"You read minds now?"

"It would make matters easier." He grows bereft of humor. "As it is, I am in a muddle. I _have_ been muddled, all of last year. When we first met, I had endured … tragedy. The loss of my daughters. My home. When I came to Okinawa, I was unmoored. Trying to recapture my life, yet terrified of dipping more than a fingertip into it."

Something tightens in Saya's chest: a seed of sympathy taking root. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize—"

"I am not telling you this as a pity ploy. It was a while ago. I am …not over it, but then is not now. I am telling you so that you _know_. That I do not make this confession lightly."

His fingertips are still at her throat. He hasn't removed them. She can feel the warmth where they sit, her pulse separated by the thinnest film of skin.

"How old were they?" she whispers. "Your daughters?"

"Almost five." His confidence dries up; suddenly he is just an ordinary man broken by bereavement. "Their mother was halfway out of the picture. But after our daughters… passed… things grew irreparable between us. Nothing left to rescue us from the wretchedness of one another."

"That's terrible. To lose your family that way."

He shakes his head, bitterly subdued. "I wish people would discontinue that verb. _Lose_. As if a man absentmindedly forgot his keys at the park. Lose or gain matters little. It is only the cruelty of Wyrd."

"Wyrd?"

She repeats it slowly. It sounds ominous, like an incantation that cannot be undone.

"It means fate." Tórir says. "A feminine noun. Tied to the Norns. The she-deities who rule the lives of god and mortal alike. _Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel_."

The words, rather than being spoken, seem inked before her eyes. Saya sees each curlicue, untranslated. But she doesn't need the vocabulary to understand them. The labyrinth of her psyche summons its own.

"'Fate goes ever as she must.'"

Tórir's face darkens within its decadent mass of half-flaming hair. He seems suddenly unlike himself, changeable and full of shadows.

"Of course," he breathes. "Of course _you_ would say that."

When he cups her jaw, Saya doesn't twist away. Her feet are rooted to the ground and yet she is falling, a darkness diffusing through her skull. She stares into that darkness, and it sucks her in, a vacuum inside of which too much is buried…

 _Tórir kissing her in the winter twilight of a forest, their bodies richly swathed in fur. Tórir roughhousing happily with two little girls in a great chamber, as she looks on with distant indulgence. Tórir shouting at her across a great oak table, until she crosses over to lay a forbidding finger on his lips. Tórir frozen at the edge of her sword in a battlefield, his mismatched eyes aflame with hatred._

Fragments of an unknown life. Yet she connects them to the man standing before her. There is a homecoming in his silhouette.

A sweetness like revenge.

Saya's eyes widen.

"You—"

Tórir kisses her, taking the epiphany with her breath.

Before she can jerk away, he backs her against the canvas wall, arms up on either side of her. She has enough time to feel the fullness of his lips. Soft. Impossibly soft. _Hot_. Then his mouth opens and she tastes a dark, winey undercurrent on his tongue. She gasps, a secret flame licking up her body. Sensation detached from physicality, as if she is a ghost in her own skin.

 _No_ , she tries to say. But her head tips back and her hands curl around his arms and her tongue talks to Tórir in a different way, the kiss growing ravenous, rapturous, supercharged.

It isn't like kissing Haji: the prelude of cool lips and cooler tongue, then bolder, betraying the sweetness of skill. Tórir goes all in, a predator at the kill. Roughly, he drags her closer, his body against hers, mouths opening wider. His racing pulse envelops hers. The sound pulls at Saya's mind until another memory cracks apart:

 _Battlefields. Blood splatters. A Queen defiled on a bed of stinking hay. A cradle of misshapen babies as small as apples._

 _And a snake uncoiling from leftovers of sorcery._

 _"Saya."_

The sound snaps her into alertness.

"No."

She wedges her hands between their bodies.

"Shh." Tórir's lips skim hers again. "Do not be afraid."

" _I said_ _no_."

Tórir tenses. His whole body radiates a coiled threat. Then he exhales, and lets go.

His eyes are flat. "I am sorry."

Saya can't answer. Her pulse a tailspin, her mind hijacked by a single question: _What just happened?_ Not the kiss. Before that. When she was on the verge of remembering...

 _What?_

The memory is already fading from her skin.

Tórir watches her inscrutably. "Did I cross a line?"

"You did."

A tremor takes her voice: anger, regret. Her hands are caught in tremors too. Her engagement ring, with its peridot in smooth gold setting, flashes like a signal.

The sight of it wells up stupid tears.

 _Haji_.

Without his grounding presence, how easily she spirals...

Tórir sighs. "I have upset you."

Saya forces herself to meet his gaze. "Lunging viper tactics will do that."

He doesn't balk at the rebuke. In the mist, his eyes are prismatically bright. "If I was heat-struck, then so were you."

She flinches. Her lips still burn from his kiss. She touches them to the coolness of her ring.

Tórir spots it, and hisses out a breath. Their eyes meet. Inside his, she sees a gleam of cold-blooded fury, before it is eclipsed by something stranger: the quiet cusp of heartache.

"So Bragi has staked his claim," he says.

"You've read the tabloids?"

"Why bother? Your face says enough." His deep voice comes out sinuously; he is feeling around. "You think he will keep you happy?"

"I think that's none of your business."

Tórir opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. Yet his silence seems to whisper to her, imparting secrets.

At length: "Will you permit me, before you dash off, to share one last miracle?"

Saya stares warily.

Tórir gestures to the farthest exhibit. Beneath the glow of an elegant glass dome, a cluster of flowers stand tall. Lovely colors: lilac, periwinkle, amethyst, their petals the texture of crepe-paper, shot through with delicate threads of white. The gossamer of a spider's web clings between two stems. The spinderella herself: a dark gem with smoke-fine appendages. She picks her way across the web like a tightrope walker. As Saya watches, she unspools a single thread, dropping into the conchical mouth of a purple flower.

And something happens.

The spider vibrates. First timorously, then with force. Her front legs rear up like a can-can dancer's. She begins capering madly around the petals. Then she falls to the soil below. Her whole body pulses in agony. Her legs shoot straight up as if electrified, then curl into a ball.

She goes still.

"Toxic shock," Tórir says softly.

"Wh-what?"

"The flowers. They are called Aconitum. The Queen of Poisons."

Saya stares at the dead spider. The sight makes her queasy in her guts.

"The garden variety are rarely potent," Tórir goes on. "But these blooms are from Nepal. Stunning colors, with lethal effect."

Saya considers the flowers with narrowed eyes. "I've seen them before."

Two years ago, to be exact. By the ancestral Miyagusuku tombs, where she'd first met Yu Shimbaku.

"No doubt," says Tórir. "The genus has many names. Monkshood. Devil's Helmet. Mother Root."

"Wolfsbane," she whispers.

Tórir's eyes go half-lidded. "You shock me at every turn, Saya."

Again, he is standing too close. Stirring unfamiliar—familiar?—sensations.

The flowers are familiar too. Something sinks inside Saya at the sight of them: inertia bleeding into premonition.

She jerks away. "I need to go."

Tórir gives her wide berth. But when she is at the doorway of the marquee, he calls, "Saya?"

"What?"

He smiles. It is a quandary of a smile, a cessation of all that is right in the world.

An enticement she can live without.

"Be warned. I do not give up easily." The words are playful. But their softness buzzes a promise down Saya's spine. "Love is a waiting game. And I am nearly done biding my time."

* * *

 _Translations of the Japanese and French:_

 _Mata toire de chinchin o shikoshiko surun ja nai ka: loosely- 'isn't he playing with his thing in the toilet again?'_

 _Shiofuki: love juice from the vag (lit. "salt spray")._

 _Funguidani: Okinawan slang for ballsack_ _._

 _J'allais vous... parler de dire des obscénités: I was going to say something filthy/obscene._

 _C'est imprudent: That's imprudent._

 _Vraiment?: Really?_

 _Tu ne peux… pas joindre le geste à la parole: You can't walk the talk (i.e. put your money where your mouth is)._

 _C'est un complot féminin: It's a female plot._

 _Comme on dit, tu l'as mérité: That's what you get._


	38. Wolfsbane (Part I)

_Early update! :)_

 _Except it doesn't seem early at all (who else feels like November was like the loooongest month ever?) Well, it's over now, so on with the fic! The plot will gain traction in the next few chapters, and both the action and the supernatural elements will kick into high gear! Hope y'all enjoy - and I'm always giddy and gibbery with the lovely feedback you leave me! Each one gives me a little boost to churn out more content!_

 _Speaking of, um, churning... smut ahead! Saya and Haji enjoy a steamy reunion, and have a serious conversation. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, trouble brews, bubbles and finally spills over..._

 _Mild gore/body horror in the last section. Begins after the lines "_ _David, Saya and Haji are already racing to the containment cell."_

* * *

CLASS CONFIDENTIAL

REASON: YR 5.3(a)

FOR RECIPIENT ONLY

-FORWARDED MESSAGE-

FROM: C****** A*******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

We've got bad news.

A specimen escaped from one of the Yabuchi labs.

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: C****** A*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

How?

* * *

FROM: C****** A*******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

We're not sure. Everything was secured. The labs weren't even on Red Shield's radar – everything was underground.

But the specimen somehow made it topside.

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: C****** A*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Casualties?

* * *

FROM: C****** A*******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

We're picking up reports of injured/dead civilians. The board is gonna be pissed.

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: V** A******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

The board is not my concern.

Red Shield will find the target. When they do, they will alert Saya.

* * *

FROM: V** A******

TO: T****

SUBJECT: PROJECT EPSILON

Shit.

What do you suggest? Damage control?

* * *

FROM: T****

TO: C****** A*******

SUBJECT: Re: PROJECT EPSILON

Leave it to me.

I have come too far to be interrupted now.

* * *

Bars of honey-colored sunlight fall through the shutters.

The ceiling fan slowly whirls, stirring air that is heavy with the seaside, and the sweetness of blue roses, their aroma wafting through the room's carefully cracked window. The bed is unmade, bearing the unmistakable signs of a sleepless occupancy: quilts stirred everywhere, sheets half-stripped, pillows jammed against the headboard.

"Oh." Saya's cries hitch between rhythmic gasps. "Oh."

They are on the rug, patched a dozen carnival-colors by the stained-glass mosaic. Both of them caught in a physical storm where the bed is simply the harbor, and they are swept on a frantic tide of their own making across the room, crawling and crashing and crying out as they stagger from the walls to the dresser to the sofa to the floor.

She is on her elbows, face half-buried in the tumble of floor-cushions. Haji rides into her from behind. It's a position she'd never imagined herself enjoying: too crude, too animalistic, too impersonal.

But Haji always makes it into something else, dark and dirty-sweet and deliciously intimate.

Draped over her from shoulder to toe, hands intertwined, he rocks with rapid reverberant thrusts that make them both shudder and groan. His cool breath parts her dangling hair, cool lips closed on her nape. She can feel his fangs scraping along the goosebumped skin. A memory crashes in: battling the Phantom on that moonlit night _, teeth-teeth-teeth_ tearing into her throat, her whole body an aria of agony.

She panics into cold sweat, losing steam. But Haji senses it and slows, strokes melting into undulations. Letting her feel nothing but the heaviness of him. The way he fills her up until she aches. The way his palms skim, cool, soothing, mesmeric, up and down her body. Each touch like the hands of a clock, punctuating the seconds as they melt together and coax the submerged desire beyond her surface until her nerves strike twelve.

"Ha-Haji..."

"I've got you, Saya."

 _I've got you._ It's become a private incantation between them. Something that encompasses both everything and nothing. _You're safe_ , and _Trust me_ and _Everything will be fine._

Catching her shoulders, Haji hauls her up to her knees, back to front, close as a cello. She lets off an unsteady cry. From this angle, he feels enormous, around her, inside her. Then his Chiropteran claw palms her breasts. Thumbing the nipples, then pinching them in time with his escalating thrusts. A knot pulls tight as a C string through Saya's body. Head rolling back against his shoulder, she shivers into sobs. He folds himself around her, and his voice thrums darkly in his throat— _Saya, Saya_ —before it is pulled out of shape, broken apart.

He isn't particularly articulate even in ordinary circumstances. Those single, soft, half-strangled sounds always stir her up like the most red-hot endearments.

Then his human hand drops between her thighs. Starfishing and strumming, as he goes on caressing her breasts with the other hand. Saya mewls, flinging one arm up to dangle from his neck, the other flying down to snatch his wrist. Everything is too much, fullness and force and friction, her entire body churning convulsively around his in a way that notches up Haji's need to incoherent frenzy. She can't help but twist her head around, a Lamarckian stretch of neck, and Haji's hair falls dark into her face and his lips catch hers. Wet, messy, barely-there kisses. He is grinding against her now in that way that drives her crazy: deep and merciless, sparking a live-wire at the base of her spine.

For a beat, there is a knee-jerk urge to find an escape route. Some way to stay sane.

It is eclipsed by a blur of pleasure, her eyes glazing over as the climax breaks through her. Wild, overlapping and nearly unbearable, her hips snapping even as her muscles clamp to keep Haji _there_ , _right there, please_ , his body a hard surface both steadying her and pummeling her blind.

 _"Haji, Haji—oh—!"_

They lurch sideways and collapse. She yelps and twists as Haji grapples her closer on a strange noise. She can't even describe it: a subharmonic note of raw hunger that deepens over the span of a dozen pummeling strokes until it hits him, a full-bodied breakage.

His growl reverberates all up and down her body. She barely feels her spasms. His are too overwhelming.

Afterward, they stay tangled together, a sweaty tableau of two bodies joined at the fulcrum point of wet, throbbing heat. When the tension puddles away, they are both gasping too hard for their usual caresses. Sometimes his body, sometimes hers, is hit with fevery tremors.

Dustmotes glitter in the buttery sunlight. The rug is bunched up beneath them. Satisfaction beats through Saya like a pulse. Sun-glow, heat-glow, after-glow: the imperfect elements of a perfect day.

Haji stays wrapped around her. His skin and breaths are cooling now. His hardness ebbs inside her before slipping free. Barely a moment later, his hand smooths down her belly to fit between her thighs, stroking with an opposite, worshipful delicacy. Sometimes she thinks she likes him best this way: the storm of desire splitting apart his control and leaving him melted into a lather of softness.

His eyes, when she rolls to face him, are soft too. A softness that she reimburses with hard kisses.

"Missed you. Missed you. _Missed_ _you_."

"Hmmm."

"I thought you'd _never_ finish your tour. Or that your plane would crash. Or a swarm of fangirls would eat you alive."

"They tried to."

Pouting, she butts him with a roll of her head. " _Hmph_. Only _I'm_ allowed to do that."

He nuzzles her hair. "It was you I imagined playing for. Each time I was on stage."

"I know. I felt it."

"Oh?"

"Mmm. Kai and the girls watched the live broadcasts with me. But I replayed them later at night. By myself." Smiling, she takes his clawed hand, touching the scaly fingers to her lips, "I closed my eyes and imagined you were touching me here—" along her breasts, "—And here," down her belly to press between her thighs. "And here."

Haji's breath wavers on a helpless indrawn sound. Folding himself around her, he retraces the path of her fingers, lips smoothing over the tips of her swollen breasts, the juts of hipbones, the damp crest of curls between her thighs. She shivers as he blows gently there, his breath both hot and cool at once. Shivers harder when he bites the moist inside of each leg, the pillow-softness of belly, before closing his mouth over her and kissing her in earnest—a tender gluttony that is worship in disguise.

Sighing, Saya threads her fingers into his hair. Two years ago, the depth of his attention would have embarrassed her. But all that wells up now is a necessity closer to blood-thirst: she hates the absence of his touch. Hates the weeks they've spent apart—even as that time is already blurring into nothing, their bodies folding together with an easy warmth devoid of awkwardness.

Will it be like this after her next Long Sleep?

Grief goes through her in a sharp cramp. Her eyes burn.

Ever-vigilant, Haji stops. "Are you all right?"

"Mm-mm."

His gaze is dosed with familiar watchfulness. "Why are you crying?"

She scrubs the tear-tracks from her cheeks. Her skin is blotched from their exertions, sticky everywhere. "Not crying. I swear. It's just... it's been almost three years. It just hit me. Pretty soon, I'll be—"

"Ssh." He encircles her into his arms. Dots her hot face with cool kisses. "Three years or thirty, I will always be waiting for you, Saya."

"When is your next tour?"

"Not until December."

"Mm. That's good. Plenty of time for us to—" _Say goodbye?_ "—be together."

Haji squeezes her in closer. She presses her cheek to his chest. Her whole body is loose-limbed and floaty; the moment, of overwhelming emotion, passes. Yet she feels like everything has been freshly washed; the air is pure in a way it hasn't been in weeks. Curled against Haji, she keeps finding little excuses to touch him. Her fingers trace the lines of his body, stroking the crosshatching of scars, the pale juts of bones.

She needs to memorize him. Not just because he is back—but because _she_ may soon be gone. And with her, the happy times with her family—Kai, Dee, Julia, David, Lewis—that may never repeat themselves again. Even with Yumi and Yuri, life will never be exactly as wonderful as it is now.

She wants to treasure every bit of it.

Quietly, she says, "Later, I want to show you the decor the girls designed."

"Decor?"

"For the wedding."

"Hm."

"We're thinking of an open-air ceremony. Down by the beach. Just in time for the lunar eclipse. We can watch it from Naminouegu Shrine, and make an offering later."

"Hm."

"And after that, maybe a fortnight in Taipei. A short honeymoon, so we can be back in time for when Sayuri's babies get here."

"Hmm." Haji is combing his hands rapturously through her hair. Sometimes letting it spill from his fingers, sometimes coiling it around his knuckles so the sunlight catches in the strands, sometimes nuzzling his cheek against it like a cat with a spool of yarn.

She thumps him. "You're not even _listening_ , are you? You're on such a post-sex buzz that I could discuss the apocalypse, and you'd just give me those wolf-puppy eyes that—"

"'Wolf-puppy eyes'?"

"That's what you give me. And bite marks."

"Better than fleas."

Idly, he rolls a strand of hair back and forth across her nipples. They tighten almost painfully; her breath catches. "Y-You'd better not have caught fleas on tour. If they get in my hair—"

"Spoil your best feature?" He kisses the locks wrapped in his palm. "I would not dare."

"My _best_ feature?"

"Second best."

"Right. Because the first, you can't kiss in public—oh— _oh_ —"

She shivers as he fists her hair in both hands, tipping her head back to gnaw the line of her throat. His favorite spot lately: in bed, out of it. She wonders if he's tempted to bite her. So far, even in their most frenzied lovemaking, he's never asked, much less intimated feeding from her. Love-bites, yes, that fade in seconds and yet suffuse her with a bone-deep bliss. But never claiming her with the same tender matter-of-factness he is coming to exhibit in every other sphere of their lives.

Never claiming her as she does him—a possession that is par for the course.

She whispers the familiar request in his ear. In reply, Haji hugs and rolls, perching her atop him. She balances there, imperiousness licking hot icicles up her spine. Then his gaze catches hers, and holds it. His hands settle, in a smooth activation of muscle, on her hips. Just that cool touch of his palms, one monster-scaled, the other soft as soapstone, and her hunger wells up like a homecoming of a different kind.

In the next beat, she's pinned him across the rug, fangs at his throat.

Haji's whole body shudders. His blood, welling up hotly, tastes of a nameless spice that might be _life_ itself. The torn skin pulses gently against her fangs. As she feeds, she lets her body stretch across his, skin to skin. She knows he loves the full contact. Loves it the way _she_ loves the hum resonating in his throat, the muted responses of a creature whose heart is engaged in lieu of his razor-fine mind.

To think she'd once believed in keeping blood-drinking out of the bedroom. To deny this vital aspect of herself, and him. As if they'd be happier cramming themselves into her rigid little definitions of _normalcy-relationships-sex-love-life._

There is so much she had to learn. Each day is a subtle metamorphosis.

A sigh, and a swallow, as she breaks off. Blood trickles from the puncture wounds on Haji's neck. They fade when she laps up the spill. Her Chevalier smiles, a pale sprawl of muscle and bone beneath her. His eyes are heavy-lidded. And _god_ , he is so lovely this way, all elegance and languor, his entire quintessence composed of descriptors fit for fencers, ballet dancers, black wine, white lilies.

He always surrenders himself to her so utterly—yet remains so self-possessed. So different from her, yet so much a part of herself, like her fingertips, her pulse.

How can she bear to leave him behind?

Blinking wetly, she nestles closer. Tips her head for a kiss, sharing his blood across their tongues. The feeding should have sated her appetite. But when they break apart, her stomach growls irritably.

Charmed, Haji smiles. "You are still hungry."

"I-I'm not, really. I just—"

"Ssh. When was your last meal?"

She blushes.

"You do not remember, do you?" He kisses her forehead. "Let me fix you something."

"You don't have to. There's takeout from _Bollywood Jewel_ in the fridge."

"Then I will bring it here. It will be our _dejeuner sur l'herbe_."

She giggles. "Shouldn't there be grass for that? And shouldn't only one of us be naked?"

He smiles with one corner of his mouth. "Forgive me, if my eyes should wander."

" _Trop présomptueux_! What makes you think I won't shower and get dressed first?"

His smile deepens. A glimpse of his old self that comes and goes delightfully often nowadays. "Simply the fact that, since I do not eat, I deserve a treat of my own."

" _Haji_."

Rising smoothly, he is already gone. Outside, in the small kitchenette, she hears him moving quietly, sees his dark shadow passing and repassing through the half-open door. At one point he peers past it, as if to check on her. She smiles, still lolling unconcernedly nude and feline on the rug, and he goes back out.

Listening to his movements, breathing in the familiar afternoon-scents that suffuse the air, a giddy serenity creeps over her. Stripes of sunlight lengthen across the rugs; she soaks them up the way a plant does. In the mirror beyond, her body glows like a golden arabesque.

She's grown to like looking at herself. Even (especially) with the ravages of skin and hair that go hand-in-hand with hours of sex, she likes the brightness of her eyes, the swollen lips and welting kisses across her neck and breasts.

Her body isn't like in the early days. Its leanness is that of coiled muscle and quick attacks. A fighter in sweet-sixteen skin.

She's grown to like other things too. This room, with its pretty stained-glass window, its cool linen bedsheets, its spoor of girly-things everywhere. It was why Haji had arranged it this way, she knows. After her Awakening, she'd needed a lot of space. But now she wants to spend as much time with her Chevalier as possible. Wants to have his belongings strewn around with hers, both their hair caught on the same pillowcase, their bodies in the same bed as a matter of course.

Another quotidian happiness to be cherished, in the time leading up to her Long Sleep.

 _Unless…_

Haji pushes the bedroom door open, emerging with a laden tray. Roused from her reverie, Saya pats the space beside her. "Eat with me."

"I should check in with—"

" _Eat_."

They sit _seiza_ -style under the stained-glass mosaic. The open white cartons of Indian food are like colorful palettes. Cheerfully, she eats smoky succulent kebabs off sticks, inhales a bowlful of thick rich curry with rice. Haji sits at an arm's length. More interested in watching her eat, as always, than in eating himself.

She can't count how many times they'd done this after lovemaking. Yet each time is a titillating novelty. She is aware of his soft indulgent smile. Of how his eyes linger when she licks crumbs from her fingers. She has a sense he would like to do so himself, but doesn't dare interrupt her meal—lest it devolve into slaking appetites of a different kind.

"I was wondering..." she murmurs.

"Hm?"

"This villa. Do you think it'll still be here, thirty years from now?"

Haji hesitates. He knows why she is asking. It is a subject they always dance around, even as they broach it. Casual remarks that conceal beneath the sense of impending loss.

"I doubt it. Buildings by the sea experience the worst foundational sinkage."

"That's too bad. I've gotten used to this place." She sighs. "It's the first home I've had since Omoro."

"We had the Zoo."

"Mm. But that doesn't count, does it? I was basically a pampered prisoner there. And you were a prisoner in all but fact." Lifting a hand, she strokes his jaw. "It was where we started. But I always knew we belonged somewhere else."

Haji leans into the touch. "Perhaps so. But I never dwelt on it."

"No?"

Shaking his head, he presses a kiss to her palm. "My home is wherever you are, Saya. I know what is in myself that always belongs to you."

Her skin leaps, heat suffusing her. She blushes. "That makes this place twice as special. It's _our_ first. Together. We were always caught up in circumstances before that. Trains, hotels, rest stops. Head down for the goal, no sense of the journey. We never got to stop moving. Until now."

"We will have other homes."

"But none quite like this." She makes herself meet his eyes. "It would've been nice... to start a family here."

In the sunlight, Haji's face goes solemn in its frame of curling hair. Turning his head, he kisses her palm again. "There is still time."

A tiny shock passes through her. "What?"

"Ssh. We will talk about it afterward." He smiles then, black wine and white lilies melting into wolfish wryness—that side he shows her when they are about to go into a promising sparring match, or about to try something wicked in bed, or recalling some crazy moment during the war that was not quite _comme il faut._ "Finish your meal first."

She lets off a flushing laugh. "I was _trying_. Before you segued into—into—" Astonishment is a gut-clench. More than that. Awe. She stuffs the last kebab into her mouth, then offers him a soupy meatball wrapped in a bit of flatbread. "Here. Eat this for me."

Obeying, he takes a bite, the dark sauce slicking his upper lip. Before he can wipe it off, Saya leans in to kiss him. The sauce makes his lips slippery. Sighing, he starts to go further. But she breaks away with a giggle. "Ooh! Mango pickles."

Red-cheeked, heart fluttering, she hides her face as she eats. But she can see Haji from the corner of her eye. Chewing the meatball slowly, his gaze fixed quietly on her in a way that lets her know she will be the last morsel.

 _"There is still time."_

Did he mean what she thinks he meant?

Then Tórir's mismatched eyes float before her. _"I am nearly done biding my time."_

Saya flinches. The memory of the mishap—the _kiss_ —sets her face aflame. She struggles to shake it off.

Haji's hand smooths her hair. "You keep blushing."

"B-Because you keep _staring_. You're supposed to help finish my food." She lifts a sticky yellow mango slice. Haji leans in to catch it off her fingers. Then he kisses them, light and reverent. A hot flush sweeps though her, cleansing all remnants of Tórir's touch.

She'll tell Haji about it. Later. That's the deal between them: no secrets. She half-suspects that when she does, he'll try to hunt Tórir down and kick his teeth in. She longs to circumvent such a dreadful scene. To replace it with just this: his cool lips and soot-lashed eyes and the sunlit languor between them.

A sweetness her skin itself remembers.

She giggles as Haji nudges the cartons aside. Her ankles are slim enough to encircle his entire claw around. Catching them, he tugs her closer, looming over her. In the golden drifts of sunlight, his eyes are intensely blue, his kisses a half-starved sign that the grace period is over.

Saya kisses him the same way, a ferocity that comes not from starvation but from being constantly seen to and satisfied: for sex, for sunshine, for sea air, for the sweetness of life itself.

 _This is what Diva wanted_ , she thinks.

A chance to take endless bites at the apple of life. The taste of freedom she adored so much.

Her eyes blur with tears again. Haji freezes. "What's wrong?"

Saya shakes her head. He is stroking her face with his clawed hand, tracing its contours with a thumb. She turns her head to kiss the palm.

"Saya?"

"I'm fine. I promise." She threads her arms around him. "Just—a little dizzy."

"Perhaps you should rest. I have... importuned you enough today."

"Oh? I seem to remember myself doing the _importuning_." She nuzzles his satiny shoulder, and smiles. "This is good. It's _perfect_. I don't think I've ever been happier."

His face lights up with a soft glow. "Really, Saya?"

" _Yes_." She kisses him, shyly. "I don't know what my life would've been without you, Haji. I couldn't have faced the war, or myself. I just want you to know how much I—" It is never easy for her to say the word, not since the afternoon of her confession. But today is the exception "—How much I love you. I'd be lost if you weren't with me."

Haji smiles his brightest smile, and her heart trips over itself in giddy reflex.

Nuzzling close, he says, "You will always be the farthest thing from lost, Saya. Even in the war, you would have survived. With or without me."

"Survived? Maybe. But there's more to living than that. You...my family... you've given me a resting place. Otherwise I'd have been nearly as alone as Diva."

Something passes over Haji's face. Too subtle to be classified as emotion, but remarkable in that it happens at all.

"What?" she asks.

"Nothing. Only—" He hesitates. "It has been a long time since you have mentioned your sister."

Saya's chest constricts. But it isn't with the memory of Diva's death so much as how she, Saya, is learning to work her own life around her sister's absence. Some days her heart is still a fresh bombsite, smoking mortar and ruined bricks. Other days, it is year-old remains, the ashes cooled, the blown-apart gaps achingly familiar.

A place grown scarred and strange in the aftermath of the war, but still left standing.

"I miss her," she says. "It sounds strange, I know. I've spent so long hating her. I let myself be defined by that hatred, so I was almost nothing without it. But..."

He finishes for her. "She was your sister."

She bites her lip, and nods. A single tear burns down her cheek.

It is neither closure, nor renunciation. For years, she'd put aside loss to focus on the war. Never allowed herself to grieve beyond a furtive heartbeat. But Diva is different. She'll never be able to think of her sister as in the past. She is there in Saya's tears, in her breaths, in her dreams, in the salty ocean of blood inside her.

Always a reminder that she may learn to be happy without Diva. But she will never be whole.

But, as Kai once told her, you can live without the luxury of wholeness. Sustain yourself on small moments of grace.

She tips her head up, and kisses Haji. Kisses that aren't comfort, but like drowning and pure air. He is ready for her. She opens wide, clutching him with needy palms and widespread thighs. Crying out as he pushes inside, flowing up to meet him. The fullness ripples through her: a full-bodied tremor as her brain floats out into drunk headwaters.

Moments like this, she forgets how it feels when he's not inside her. Can't even imagine the absence. Her sigh is a dizzy descent of octaves.

" _J'ai le tournis._ "

He smiles. " _Je prends—ça pour un compliment_."

" _Si tu me fais_ …"

"Hm?"

A giggle rises from her pinkened throat. _"Si tu me faites crier ... je vais vous donner un prix."_

" _J'ai déjà mon prix."_ He sinks in deep, with that swivel that makes her shudder and cry out. " _Je prévois de—tout dépenser au même endroit_."

She giggles again. His Chiropteran claw encircles her head. Cool thumb a hypnotic back-and-forth across her brow, so her sensorium narrows to nothing but that tingly one-inch spot, and the slow pulse of him inside her. They stir in a lazy rock-and-roll, to the soundtrack of sighs, to spaces left between words for kisses.

Afterward, they stay together in a sweat-sheened tangle across the rugs. Drowsily, she strokes his hair. His skull is deliciously heavy on her breasts, the curls a rich dark heap of velvet. She wants to drift off. But she also doesn't want to miss this, the indolent intimacy of holding him in her arms.

"Haji?"

"Hm?"

"What did you mean before? About… there still being time?"

He is bonelessly still, as if poured across her. But his pulse beats rapidly wherever their bodies touch. "There is still time to fetch the second tincture from Nathan. To start a family."

Her heart flutters. " _Now_?"

He nods, and nuzzles her throat.

"Things are different," he says, "since the last time."

"They are."

They've danced around the subject before, in a serious and yet not-so-serious way. With her Long Sleep nearing, the former is eclipsing the latter. But are they ready? For children, and thirty years together?

She whispers, "We've only just gotten into the swing of things."

"Children will not spoil that." He lifts his head. The gentleness of his gaze nearly makes her lose her bearings. "We have come so far. I trust that we can go further."

"To try again?"

"Or afresh."

She takes a steadying breath. There is no way to avoid his blue eyes, their soft hopeful regard. The miscarriage is still a seam of grief between them. It lives deep inside their minds, elided by fresh experience but never erased.

Another pregnancy won't erase it. Thirty years together is still the wrong reason to begin a family. Or is it the right one? Her reasons in the past were no better. It was never about readiness, or steadiness, or sanity (or lack thereof). It was never even about preserving their shrinking bloodline. She wanted, blindly, to resurrect some remnant of Diva. And with it, her own will to live.

This is different.

This is about love. A living-breathing imprint of love. Hers and Haji's love. But also the chance to spend it, irrationally, endlessly, exuberantly, on something beyond themselves.

To become… _more_.

Saya shivers. "Do you want this with me? Or _for_ me?"

Haji is quiet a moment. Then— "Neither."

"Why then?"

He folds his fingers through hers, and squeezes.

"Because I realized—"

"What?"

He swallows hard. "I realized—I need to make love to you every day. To talk with you. Eat with you."

"Haji..."

"I also realized that love is not a zero-sum game. Having daughters will not diminish what I feel for you. It will grow as we do. From what we are willing to go through to make it happen." The hope in his eyes is no longer incognito, but swimming to the surface. "If you wish to make it happen."

Excitement pulses through her, wave upon wave of it. Their gazes meet and make the pledge, a synchronicity that melds their bodies even closer.

She whispers, "Oh." She means, "Oh yes."

In answer, Haji envelops her in his arms, dusting kisses across her face. She can feel the emotions boiling in him; feel his impossibility at expressing them. Affection and gratitude. Joy.

The first syllables of _Thank you_.

Then Saya spots the green glow of her cellphone, lying near the cushions. A text notif chimes.

Frowning, she reaches out. The message is from David.

 _Emergency. need u and hagi at koza HQ._

 _ now _ _._

Attached is an image. When she opens it, her skin prickles with a gutting edge that should be fear—but is really inevitability.

"Haji?"

"Hmm."

"Get dressed. Something has happened."

 _Something bad._

* * *

6 Chome-2-1 Matsumoto

Okinawa-shi

Okinawa-ken 904-2151

Japan

The room is a stark white box. Three-fourths concrete, one fourth palladium-based glass. An airtight cell.

Yet Haji can practically smell the rancid sweat and metallic blood on the man strapped to the bed. He appears to be in the grip of a seizure, head and shoulders jerking, the muscle fibers twitching down the length of his body in sporadic waves. Garbled words and gouts of pinkish foam fly from his mouth.

Nothing anyone can make sense of. But the scrambled language seems to bear its own horrific brand of meaning, madness turned into Morse code.

His eyes are the color Haji has seen a million times before. The inflamed red of an open wound.

At first glance, the sight is dismally familiar. Another victim of Delta67.

Except something is strange. None of the victims of D67 showed reddish splotches across the skin. The man's naked body is covered with them: a dark mottle across his armpits, his groin, his throat and arms and between the fingers of his hands. Some of the spots are cracked open, oozing pus. Others are scabbed over—or no. Not scabbed.

Crystallized.

Whatever substance was pumped into the man, his body is suffering a reaction beyond the standard zoanthropy that dissolves his intellect and reduces him to a beast.

His body is devouring itself, inside out.

"Our men picked him up at Uruma," David says.

He gives the thrashing man in the cell a measuring look, his steel-trap brain likely calculating the unfortunate specimen's lifespan and coming up with: _Not much longer left_. The knowledge doesn't soften the iron in his gaze. "He'd been wandering around. There were several casualties in his wake."

"How many?" Saya asks.

She stands apart from Haji and David, fingertips resting against the glass. Inside, the man's howling has dropped to a sub-audible sibilation that crawls beneath the skin. A snake hissing in its death throes. The sound seems to hold her body static.

It isn't fear, Haji thinks. It is Saya gathering her reserves, keeping herself steady and ready.

Whenever trouble brews, she becomes a center of deadly silence. Anti-Zen.

"The first reports were of a derelict at the highway," David says. "Not long after, a construction worker in town was discovered with his throat torn out. Three hours later, a little boy at the nearby kindergarten went missing. The authorities located his drained body in the woods. Along with their killer. One of our operatives was also at the scene, and alerted Red Shield. We managed to subdue the threat and bring him in."

Saya's eyes harden to stone. "Did the doctors get anything out of him? His name, where he's from?"

"Nothing so far. But the blood tests themselves yielded interesting information."

"Like what?"

David indicates to the readouts on the adjacent monitor. "Whatever he was injected with, the results replicate the effects of Delta67. But mixed with its components is something completely unlike Delta67. Its polar opposite, in fact."

Saya and Haji exchange a glance.

"Opposite?" Saya echoes.

"Our doctors managed to culture something from the blood sample," David says. "It's loaded with irreversible enzyme inhibitors. Similar to alkaloid toxins. Except this substance is like nothing we've encountered before. On a normal human being, its effects are dangerous enough. Symptoms manifest as high fever, vomiting, and even respitory paralysis. But they can be cured. Whatever it is, it can't withstand human antibodies. But in the system of a Chiropteran..."

Here, David stops. His gaze slides past Saya, the permafrost thawing into a uniquely human uncertainty.

"What is it?" Saya asks.

David's mouth compresses.

Ordinarily, Haji has never known David to mince words. (See: the matter-of-fact way he'd broken the news of George's death to Riku.) But he recognizes that David's tact now isn't rooted in politeness but precision. A fellow soldier contemplating how to make the hard truths of a disaster bearable to another.

"Mr. David?" Saya says. "What's the matter?"

David exhales. "On Chiropterans, this substance is fatal. Our scientists tried it on samples of Yumi and Yuri's blood. Then on your blood, Saya. The effects were identical. It fused red and white blood cells together into clumps similar to crystallization. The process is—" a cursory glance at the man strapped to the bed, "—unpleasant. There seems no way to stop it. Even if there was, the internal damage would be too extensive for a full recovery."

"How is that possible?" Saya's voice doesn't quaver, but there is an undercurrent of tension, like a wire ready to snap. "For so long... we believed nothing could kill Chiropterans. Nothing in the realm of science, anyway."

"This substance isn't man-made. The tests we've run show that its compounds can be traced back to nature. It's a toxin similar to Aconitium. But even in large doses, it's treatable. For a human, at least. For anyone with even a trace of Chiropteran blood, it is lethal. The only reason that man is still alive is because the D67 in his bloodstream hasn't taken full effect. His human antibodies are attempting to attack the substance, while the Chiropteran ones are losing the battle. His body is locked in a stalemate—but it can't last beyond another few hours."

Saya goes still, shadowy. "What about on a full-blooded Chiropteran? How fast would it take to kill one?"

"Judging by the test results? Twenty-four hours, give or take."

Quietly, Haji asks, "Can the substance pass from blood to blood contact?"

David nods. "Invasive interaction poses a definite risk. Skin-to-skin and airborne contagion is low, but unprotected sexual activity run a 60% risk. Contaminated blood-transfusions? That ups the chance to 100%."

Saya glances toward the containment cell. "Do you think that man was poisoned by accident? Or deliberately?"

"That, we aren't sure of. He's barely verbal. We haven't been able to get much out of him. But there is one possible clue."

"What?"

"When we found the man, he was only wearing a sheet. It had bloodstains of his previous victims, suggesting he'd acquired it either during, or shortly after he got loose. On closer inspection, we found that it wasn't a sheet at all, but burlap for a rice sack. The label read _Hikage Okome_ —a small rice farm located on Yabuchi Island."

"Yabuchi." Saya's eyes narrow. "That's where IBM-UAWA last set up shop."

"Correct."

"Would they be so stupid as to relocate there?"

"In an ideal world, no. But there could be other research occurring on the island."

"Experiments on human beings, you mean."

"Yes." Another pause, this one charged with significance. David isn't the type to place his hand on a comrade's shoulder. But if he was, Haji senses he would do so with Saya. "In the meantime, I want you and your family to remain on high alert. I've already contacted the Chief, and dispatched a message to Sayumi and Sayuri, explaining the situation. We've encountered Chiropterans before in Taipei. But for this to occur here, right on our doorstep... It's too much of a coincidence."

Saya's face is both drifting and focused, two looks that can only be reconciled to her. "I understand. Thank you, Mr. David."

Now David does clap her on the shoulder, a gesture so unexpected it dislodges any remnants of tension from Saya.

Blinking, she stares at him. David drops his hand, clearing his throat in what might pass for either defense or apology.

"Thank us when this situation has been dealt with. For the future you've given us, the least Red Shield can do is ensure you a peaceful present."

Saya hesitates, then relaxes into a wistful smile. "I appreciate that. But there's no need for—"

"Officer David!" A medic stumbles into the room. Blood speckles his pale-green scrubs. "Sir! The patient is talking!"

David whirls. "What?"

"The patient, sir! He's lucid! We're not sure how long it'll last, but—"

He doesn't get a chance to finish.

David, Saya and Haji are already racing to the containment cell.

* * *

 _"Thirssssssssty."_

The word is a jittery death-rattle. It reminds David of the sounds some men make when their throats are slit: that squelching gurgle of blood gushing into the windpipe.

The man's eyes are open, nearly unblinking. Tiny fissures spread across the eyelids, streaks of red radiating from the canthus in a mapwork of crystallization. It won't be long, David thinks, before the man loses the ability to close his eyes completely.

Yet the gaze isn't hazy or disoriented. The opposite: it holds David's own with reptilian focus.

 _"Thirssssstyyyy."_

The man's name is Akamine Haru. A derelict from Kanekadan, Uruma-shi. Late sixties. Homeless. Alcoholic. No living family.

Red Shield's operatives haven't gotten much beyond that from him. But those few screws of information click efficiently into David's system of understanding, connecting with other details into a comprehensive layout. Everything about this man makes him an easy target. Not simply for abduction and experimentation, but also in case of an escape.

Who cares if the local winebag goes missing—or believes him if he stumbles back into town claiming he'd been snatched up for an illegal genetic experiment?

"Akamine-san. Who did this to you? Do you have any recollection?"

David's question elicits no response. Akamine keeps drifting in and out of awareness. Always hissing _Thirsty_ in that unsettling snake's voice. Pink foam oozes from the corners of his mouth. His body gives off a stink that overpowers even the clean carbolic scent of the room. Not merely the stink of unwashed flesh; something metallic, salty, with an underlying perfume of rotten fruit.

Ketosis and crystallization, racing hand-in-hand across his body, which is consuming itself alive.

David's flat expression doesn't waver. He has spent too long on the frontline, dealing with human and monstrous bodies in their gruesome vagaries.

Yet something thrums down his spine. A gut feeling he's learnt never to ignore.

Whatever Akamine is seeping with, he's ninety-nine percent sure it's not harmful to him. Yet that tiny one-percent, sunk like a splinter in his brain, whispers:

 _Keep away._

Something crackles around the man, an energy both primal and volatile. The closest he can compare it to is being around Saya in her darkest moments, danger fizzing through her like a cut power cord. Or brief encounters with Diva, her eyes staring right _through_ everything with a bottomless hunger.

The skin of Akamine's forehead and cheekbones is developing glittering red cysts. Not long, David knows, before he won't be able to work his jaw. Or talk.

"Akamine-san. Try to focus. Do you remember who did this to you?"

"Let me try."

This is Saya.

David had told her and Haji to stay out, considering the contagion vector. Of course neither of them have listened. The skills of assassins and the morals of saints—some people just elude logic.

David's fists open stiffly as she squeezes past him, then close again as she leans in, mouth to Akamine's ear.

"Saya," he says. "That's not a good ide—"

She's already whispering fluent _Uchinaaguchi_ into the man's blood-crusted ear, in contrast to David's crisp standard Japanese. A dying language, but one that might be comprehensible to Akamine. David hopes so—although the man's eyes remain foggy and unthinking.

 _Thirsty_ , he whispers, then says it again. But this time it is _Kaakiin_. The same word, repeated in Uchinaguchi. Saya whispers something again, and David watches a glint of awareness come to those red eyes, a remote humanity.

It can't last. But it's the best they've got.

In his stilted Ryukuan, David tries again. "Akamine Haru. Can you understand me?"

"Ye-es." There are red fissures spreading across the chapped lips. "Please. So thirsty."

David ignores the plea. No amount of liquid given to this man has satiated his thirst. The word is now almost a reflex, the way someone says _Oh Jesus_ when afraid.

"We need answers on what happened to you. What is the last thing you remember before you were wandering around in Katsurenhaebaru?"

"Wandering?"

"You were wearing a sheet labeled _Hikage Okome_. Were you on Yabuchi Island at any point?"

"Ya...buchi...?" His tongue darts out of his mouth, dark and scaled. It reminds David of a snake, tracing a mysterious scent in the air. "Yabuchi Island... The _habu_ stay there..."

Of course. The island is famous for its venomous pit vipers— _habu_.

But David fails to see its significance. "Concentrate, Akamine-san. Were you recently on Yabuchi Island? Do you remember who or what might have done this to you?"

" _Hikage Okome_... The fa-fa-factory. Yes." The wasted head swivels, as if Akamine is trying to orient himself. "They took me there. Me and... others. We were chosen. Lucky. They said it was for... good cause..."

David exchanges a glance with Saya, whose face has gained a sharpness, an intensity, that matches the dark focus of her gaze.

"Akamine-san," she whispers. "Who is 'they'? Can you tell us?"

"Good cause... They said we were blessssed." Cracks of bright red are blooming around his eye sockets. His mouth is a dark irregular O, like a third sightless eye. "But she... she h-h-helped. She let me free."

David frowns. " 'She' who?"

"She—she looked like—" Akamine coughs, red spittle spraying everywhere.

Instinctively, David tries to yank Saya away.

Haji is faster. Snatching Saya's shoulders, he jerks her back. Akamine is coughing wretchedly, redness splashing his neck and face. The different muscle groups in his body have become a mess of twitching bits, flexing and convulsing. It doesn't remind David of a death-spasm, but a tangle of snakes slithering beneath the warm blanket of skin.

Haji holds onto Saya, as if trying to shield her from the sight. But nothing can stop the sound filling the air, a shrill pressurized hiss, like a valve rupturing. And overlaying that, a primal disquiet so strong it makes even David feel ill.

 _Keep away,_ his mind warns _. Keep away._

"Saya." Haji's voice is deep and quiet as the hour itself. "We should step outside."

Saya barely moves. Her gaze is tangled with Akamine's.

The man's eyes remind David of cherry-bombs: bright with an all-consuming heat. They stay fixed on Saya, even as his body rocks in the grip of uncontrollable spasms. A gush of foamy blood squirts from his mouth, but he isn't coughing, he is talking, the words coming in a fetid rush. "You—you were there. Blue eyes and long hair. You set me free. You—s-s-smiled for me. Such a... lovely smile..."

Saya's face drains of color. The word is a vacant echo: "Blue eyes?"

"Please—please... Smile for me again. I can't—"

The rest of the words lock in his throat, the same way his body locks into a ramrod stiffness. Not rigor mortis. Crystallization. David watches the red lines crack out like shattered bone china, eyeballs to toenails. It is revolting, but all too familiar. How many of Red Shield's enemies and allies have met the same fate?

The difference is that this time, Saya's blood didn't cause it.

Saya herself stares at the body—because it is a body now—until it stops trembling. Her expression is flat, but also edged in something David can't read. As for Haji—well. If the Chevalier exhibits any emotion at all, it is trapped under thirty sheets of ice. To this day, David hasn't met anyone on the battlefield who holds death at an arm's length with the same cold precision as Saya's Chevalier.

Then he frowns, edging forward. "David. Keep away."

"What?"

"Keep away. Something is—"

 _Wrong_ , is what David assumes he'll say.

Except he never gets the chance.

The skin of Akamine's throat splits and cracks like paper. Something long and glittering-black oozes out. At first sight it appears to be sludge. Then David understands it is something else.

Something alive.

A snake, coiled in on itself, its eyes flickering open in a surreal blue glow.

"What the _hell_ —?"

Instinct has David grabbing for his gun. But the snake is faster. Unfurling with eye-blink speed, it darts for the three spectators. Its mouth is a nest of glistening fangs.

 _Thwack_.

The sound of steel piercing scale is almost liquid. The snake jerks down its length, then cleaves in half with a bloody _plop_. Hit, not by one of Haji's daggers, but by Saya's sword.

She is still caught in the ferocious momentum of the swing: feet planted, shoulders flexed, one arm outstretched. But her expression gives David the creeps.

Not shock or even fear.

Something closer to recognition.

Then he hears the voice. It drifts up in the air, as if the snake aspirated it with its dying gasp. Barely a susurration of sound at first, it strengthens into a sibilation. A serpentine hiss.

" _Saya_."

Blood sheets across the tiles. In the red split between the snake's body, a vial glistens. Its stopper is crafted in a Nordic design: the metal knotwork of a serpent, its body cut into shadowed triangles of ironwork scales. It coils around itself, tail caught between its teeth, the hammered disc of a moon glinting in the center.

And the vial itself?

Filled with liquid the color of wolfsbane.

* * *

 _The snake be like, "Surprise, bitch," in the manner of outdated memes - except, welp, it dead._

 _Next chapter will be a full-on info-dump to explain what's afoot. Expect Nathan to make a (fashionably!) well-timed return!_

 _Translations for the French banterings:_

 _J'ai le tournis: I'm dizzy/My head is spinning._

 _Je prends—ça pour un compliment: I'll take that as a compliment._

 _Si tu me faites crier ... je vais vous donner un prix: If you make me scream, I'll give you a prize._

 _J'ai déjà mon prix. Je prévois de—tout dépenser au même endroit: I already have my prize. I plan to spend it in one place._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Feedback makes me squee!_


	39. Wolfsbane (Part II)

_Happy Friday the Thirteenth! :)_

 _My weekend is pretty booked, so I got done with this chapter early! Finally getting around to answering a few pivotal questions about Saya's history, and the mythos of the Queens. I won't say everything gets explained, as there's still a few more mysteries to solve - but nonetheless, I hope it provides a satisfying (and semi-logical?) pay-off, considering the slatherings of supernatural drama heaped all over this crazy-pie of a fanfic._

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

"What the fuck? That sounds like something straight outta _Alien_!"

"It was not as entertaining."

"What about the bit where it said her name. Sure it wasn't your imagination?"

"David heard it. So did the staff on-scene. The incident was caught on camera."

"But it actually said... _Saya_? C'mon. You're pulling my dick."

"I'd sooner have my hand chopped off."

Kai's eyes glint a semaphore of irritated amusement. But, like Haji, he doesn't smile.

Wind gusts across the beach. Overcast today, cumulus clouds drifting over the colorless sky, tingeing the water to the same shade as the snake's blue eyes.

Thinking back on the incident, bewilderment creeps through Haji.

The snake—he _recognizes_ it. It was the same one he and Saya spotted two years ago, at the garden-square of Fuzhou. Not long after the blue roses had erupted around the villa. Not long after Haji had glimpsed the red-haired man with the two-toned eyes—Tórir.

These details fall into place within the substructure of Haji's brain, combining with other facts it has stored. Saya's confession about the dreams. About hearing Diva's voice. About the forewarning from the _Yuta_. Their isolated, idiosyncratic significance broadens into something more ambiguous and yet more ominous, a supernatural stratosphere hidden from him.

But it is nothing to Haji's concern for _Saya_.

She'd left the Red Shield outpost with him, so vacant as to seem nearly catatonic. They hadn't spoken during the journey, or when they returned to the villa. Instead she had snatched up her sword, and confined herself to the training room in the basement.

The last Haji had seen, she was going through her _kata_ , so rapid and concentrated she resembled a firework made flesh. He'd watched her run through her routine, staying out of her line of sight. Not that Saya would notice him anyway.

She goes into a completely head-space during her workout.

It is a place she inhabits when preparing for a battle of life versus death.

"Did Red Shield's scientists explain what was going on?" Kai prods. "I mean—how'd a snake get inside that guy in the first place?"

"They are not sure."

"Well, Julia will be back from her conference in the States soon, right? Maybe she can figure it out?"

"Perhaps."

Kai frowns, and aims that frown over the stretch of the sparkling sea. Leaning against his motorbike, there is a restless cant to his posture that Haji has come to recognize. A fighter on red-alert.

More quietly, Kai says, "This toxin. The one in Red Shield's memo. Is it legit?"

"Apparently."

Haji stays expressionless, even as his entire body floods itself with the acrid tide of instinct: to root out the threat, then decimate it. For Sayumi and Sayuri. For Saya. He thinks about Akamine's ruined body. Thinks of that substance anywhere near the three Queens in his guard, and simmers with an unspent urge to find whoever is responsible, and make them pay.

Because David was right about one thing. For such a disaster to manifest, right at their doorstep?

It is a warning.

"Yabuchi Island," Kai says then. "Is that where they picked that guy up from?"

Haji nods.

"Any idea what's happening there?"

"Red Shield has its sightlines on a rice farm. It is private property. We have no channel to investigate it. But—"

"What?"

"Saya wishes to head there. Akamine said something, before he passed. Something about—" Haji breaks off, gaze shading. Inside, he is caught in a tangled space where uncertainty knots with foreboding.

Kai eyes him warily. "What is it?"

"Akamine. He spoke of a girl setting him free. A girl who looked like Saya, but with blue eyes."

" _What_?" Haji senses Kai's shock before he sees it: a stumbling epithet of heartbeats. The other man's face is palely strained. "Hold on a second. You can't actually believe that."

Haji does not wish to. But that is precisely why he must head to Yabuchi Island. Let his senses reconfirm what has been unchallenged truth for decades: that Diva is dead. Not for his sake, but Saya's. Because he can't bear for his Queen to return to the limbo of her early Awakening, clutching at a glittering clump of Diva's remains in her waking hours while whimpering for Diva's forgiveness in her sleep.

"Haji." Kai sketches a timeout sign in the air. "Diva's long gone. We all know that."

"Her full remains were never recovered after the Met bombing. Only Amshel's."

"That doesn't prove anything. Besides, Saya's blood crystallized her. There's no _reset_ button for that."

Haji wishes it were true. But he has seen strange days, full of disaster and impossibility. For centuries, he'd navigated through life with the knowledge that nothing but a Queen's blood could kill a Chiropteran. The news of this toxin holds an echo both unsettling and profound, a resonance of possibility striking the hidden iceberg neither he nor Saya have discussed since the war.

Her deathwish.

Her unshakable conviction that Chiropterans don't deserve to exist.

What if there are others out there—scientists, military factions, governments—who have been working all these decades with the same goal in mind?

Or is the creation of the toxin even more far-reaching and sinister?

Futile conjecture. He sets it aside. It will do no good to give in to the hot cognition of emotions. Better to be watchful. To gather all the information necessary. Then it is a question of what to do next.

"We must learn what is happening at Yabuchi," Haji says.

Kai nods gravely. "It's worth checking out."

"I want you to keep Sayuri and Sayumi out of it—"

"Bullshit. I've already gotten calls from 'em. They're fired up about storming the island. Might as well make a full-fledged family operation of it."

"We do not know who we are dealing with. IBM-UAWA—or some other faction. Without the proper intel—"

"I've already called Lewis. He's corresponding with a CIA buddy who might have deets."

Haji raise an eyebrow. "That was quick."

"Yeah. Well. It's not my first rodeo." Kai flashes a cheerful tiger of a grin. "I've already had a shady organization fuck with my family once. Not letting it happen again."

 _Not again._

Of course not. In the early days, Saya and her family lacked the flexibility of mind to grapple with the war. How could they? Saya was suffering from amnesia. Her brothers were civilians. But this time around, they cannot afford the war's casualties. Red Shield is in the nascent stages of stability under August. Yuri is heavily pregnant. Saya is beset by memories not her own. Her Long Sleep is imminent, with her and Haji finally having agreed to circumvent it by starting a family.

Which is why they must establish a measure of control. Otherwise they will always be reacting, always recovering from the latest setback, despite their best efforts to win.

Then Kai asks, "How's she taking all this? Saya, I mean."

All at once, Haji's resolve about keeping the big picture in mind dissolves into uncertainty. How does one answer a question whose currents are still spinning him as he tries to catch on?

"I believe," he says, "she is taking it better than we are."

* * *

The moon is a glowing fishhook above the forest. The air is dewy with wafts of petrichor. Petals swirl in colorful eddies in the wind. Blue, red, purple. They flutter across Saya's skin. Tangle in her flying hair.

Laughing, she combs her hands through the strands. The petals shake free in a fragrant tumble, drifting around her bare feet.

Then a hand catches hers. All at once she is in motion, being pulled like the petals in the wind. It should frighten her: she is moving at fantastic speed. Around her, the blurred shadows of forest sweep by. Moonlight is a flickering drift through the breathing trees, lighting her path. Her feet barely touch the mossy floor. She glides as if on hollow bones.

Weightless. Thoughtless. _Free_.

 _"Where are we going?"_ she asks.

A familiar laugh. Like chiming bells and waterfalls.

Diva's laugh.

 _"You'll see,"_ her sister says.

 _"Shouldn't we slow down?"_

 _"It's too late for that, big sister."_

Exhilarated and disoriented, she lets Diva sweep her along. Everything feels so familiar. The biting whistle of the cold wind. The damp aroma of wet earth and dying leaves. The ghostly bark of silver birches, like parchment mottled with ink. Everything flashes at the periphery of her vision, but her senses are fixed straight ahead, on the dark whip of Diva's hair and the unspooling silk of her laughter.

 _"Not much further, Saya! Be ready to jump!"_

 _"Jump?"_

Then the trees taper into open space: a steep crest of rock barely a hundred yards shy of the forest. It falls sheer, a heartstopping distance down into the deep blue shimmer of lake.

Laughing, Diva swoops straight toward the edge. Instinctively, Saya yanks her twin's hand, but their momentum is unstoppable.

Together, they leap through the air. A giddy lightness grips Saya: it is like a freefall down a skyscraper, a high jump at full speed, a rollercoaster right when the tracks drop away. That eternal instant of tripping heartbeats and sweet emptiness.

Then they aren't flying at all, but floating. Down, down, down, the way the blue petals fluttered earlier at Saya's feet. She stares, still clutching Diva's hand, and finds them both drifting to the widening spread of the lake. The water is the purest blue. As perfectly flat as a mirror.

Their toes hover inches from its surface, never touching. Saya feels the coolness radiating from the water. It is a contrast to the burning heat of Diva's hand in hers.

Her sister giggles. _"Isn't this amazing?"_

It _is_ amazing. Saya tips her head back to stare at the star-glittering sky, to take deep lungfuls of the air, heavy the undernote of greenery. Carefully, she glides across the gleaming surface of the water, not like an ice-skater but a moon-walker. Boneless. Weightless.

Playfully, Diva catches Saya into a spinning dance. She does so love to show off to her.

 _"How?"_ Saya says, gaze riveted to Diva's, _"How is this possible?"_

 _"You always ask the wrong questions, big sister."_

 _"What do you mean?"_

Diva laughs, a sound that rolls out and out like the wilderness. Pure and endless and beautiful. _"That's what I mean."_

Saya understands, and doesn't.

Then something is breaking from the water. Dark and sinuous, its body a glitter of black scales. The snake, unfurling with slow grace from the lake, rising into the cool air. Its eyes glow the same shade as the water.

Mesmerizingly blue.

 _"Diva..."_ Saya hesitates, edging closer to her twin. _"Diva, what...?"_

 _"She's here for you, Saya,"_ Diva says.

 _"For me?"_

Diva lets go of her hand.

 _"No! Don't!"_

It's too late. She hits the surface of the water with an impact like crashing through ice. The shock squeezes her lungs. Her mind pinwheels into panic. Then she is splashing, choking, sinking into the gelid depths. The snake swims closer. Cold scales tangle around her body, pulling her down to the bottom of the lake.

 _"Diva!"_ Saya flails wildly, a hand outstretched. _"Diva, please!"_

Diva only smiles, glowing, indulgent, wistful _. "Don't fight it, Saya."_

 _"Please!"_

 _"There's nothing to be afraid of."_

Then Saya is drowning, icy water filling her lungs. The snake is wrapped around her, like ivy creeping around a tree-trunk. Its blue eyes burn into hers. And she understands: she isn't drowning at all. She is being submerged, both utterly unprepared and impossibly patient, into memory.

The snake's mouth is opening. She knows it means to bite her. She doesn't resist. She curls her arms around its scaly body, eyes closed, jaw set.

Ready.

* * *

Saya opens her eyes.

She sits on the stairs of the turtleback tombs. Moonlight dusts the treetops. The wind engages thousands of leaves in their branches, a swooning susurration. She had zoned out, thoughts whisked into a froth of portent. Nothing she can make sense of, but she's learnt to distinguish her Diva-dreams from the ordinary figments of her psyche. They carry a different texture. A richness of déjà vu.

Except for the snake.

The snake is real. Today, she saw it with her own eyes. The dreamy slither of its body. The sinuous segments of its scales. She'd seen it in dreams for months. She'd known in her marrow that it was real. But that's different from slaying it with her own hands, the tip of her sword smeared with its blood.

She came to the Miyagusuku tombs an hour ago. Not to center her adrenalized body—but to get answers.

 _The old woman. Auntie Yu._

 _She knew about the snake._

 _She called it a messenger._

Saya got the message. A vial nestled in the snake's belly. A vial nearly identical to the one Nathan gave her. Except for its stopper: engraved with the motif of a serpent cording a moon. Inside was a lethal concentrate of liquid. Not snake venom, but aconitine.

Wolfsbane.

Saya stares at a small splotch of dried blood on her palm. A leftover from the snake? She wipes it off on her dress, and breathes deeply.

 _I need to know what's happening._

 _I need to protect my family._

It is her first and only thought: pure instinct. Akamine's illness was disquieting. She can't stop thinking of the sores on his torso, scudded with red crystal. Worse is the sense that it wasn't a preview but a history lesson. Like the snake had hijacked the poor man's body, luring him into the city for Saya to find.

A presaging of disaster?

Then she thinks of Akamine's dying words. The blue-eyed girl. Something shimmers in her bones, a complexity of emotion that she is tempted to label as fear. Except its unadulterated brightness is something else completely.

The stirrings of hope.

Saya's hand goes to her necklace. The stone is vibrant red shimmer, shot through with a vein of moonlight.

 _Diva._

 _Are you really out there?_

It makes no sense. If Diva is alive, then why is Saya having colloquies with her ghost? Was Akamine simply delirious? Was he lying?

Or is something deadlier stirring behind the scenes?

She hears it then—footsteps.

Footsteps presaged by a diagonal slash of shadow. A familiar tenor lilts over the wind.

 _I see a bad moon a-rising  
I see trouble on the way  
I see earthquakes and lightnin'  
I see bad times today!_

Goosepimples burst across Saya's skin. She spins. "What—what're you doing here?"

Nathan ignores her ostentatiously. His get-up is ostentatious too: the same scarlet-and ivory kimono he'd been decked out in during their early meeting at the villa.

Now Saya sees the bright florets of foxgloves and pale ribbons of snakes with different eyes. A premonition pools in her belly.

Nathan meets her stare and poses demurely. His fingers, red-tipped, snap open an _ō_ _gi_. He unfurls its translucent pleats in the moonglow like a _geisha_ performing a fan dance.

" _Gorgeous_ , hm?"

"Yes," she says simply, because it is true.

Nathan totters down the stairs on wooden clogs. His toenails are painted the same red, but the feet and calves are gracefully muscled. The whole ensemble somehow calls attention to the statuesque torque of his physiognomy, not a fashion statement but a war cry, secret and strange.

" _Tsk_. Stop undressing me with your eyes!"

Saya jerks her eyes up to his face, which is alit with smirkish glee.

 _Was not!_ she nearly snaps. Instead, she says, "Why are you here?"

"Visiting an old friend."

"Friend?"

Nathan doesn't elaborate. He rearranges the folds of his kimono, perching beside her on the stairs. A pale raft of moonlight seeps through the trees, catching silver motes in his eyelashes. He looks both surreal and relational, a signpost at the crossroads of Saya's memory.

 _I knew you before,_ her bones whisper. _Oh, I did._

She doesn't meet Nathan's eyes. When she speaks her voice is almost a stranger's, drifting in the dark above their heads.

"I saw a snake today."

"Did you?"

"Not an ordinary snake." The temperature is dropping by degrees. But she barely feels it. "It came out of a man's body. It had a vial in its belly. It spoke my name."

" _Saya_."

"Yes."

"No." His hands fold together in an elegant interweaving of dark nails and pale skin. "It said _Saya_. Not your name. Your mother's."

A shockwave judders down Saya's spine. She stares at Nathan. Her initial sense of bewilderment gives way to a subspecies of starvation, so dark it clogs her mind. The whisper in her bones becomes a furor. _Tell me tell me tell me..._

Nathan doesn't look at her. His profile, downcast, goes unrecognizably still. Brooding.

"Your ancestors were not native to the Froyar. They came to us from across the shores. Dark of hair and dusky of skin, speaking a Proto-Sinitic tongue that could've arisen from the great rivers of East and Southeast Asia. Your mother's name—such a silky, sweet name—meant shadow. A small night. And she was like the night itself: full of secrets and whimsy." He sighs. "Like all royalty, her house bore a coat of arms. A sigil. Hers was the serpent circling the blood moon."

Saya's lungs cramp. She feels like she can barely breathe.

"The Queens' sigil engendered countless mythoi across the ages. Inanna, goddess of fertility and war, riding a great serpent. The nameless Minoan Snake Goddess. The Swedish Snake-Charmer's Stone. Babalon the Scarlet Woman, the Great Mother of Abominations. Then later, once Queens fell from grace, all symbols tied to them were branded transgressive. _Evil_. Think of the Edenic fall. Of Lilith and the Old Serpent. Of Medusa and her writhing tresses." Nathan's lips twitch sardonically, a bitter aftertaste in the slow nectar of his voice. "In my day, it was different. The serpent and the moon symbolized the undying. The power of fertility and rebirth. Eternity itself."

"The ouroboros biting its tail," Saya whispers.

"Good girl." His bitterness softens into a smile. "For Queens, the serpent and moon were the fusion of opposites. War and peace. Ice and fire. Desire and death. The emblem of the Blodfødt _._ It has spanned millennia, but I like to think ours was the first invention. Us—or the Egyptians. They were a wily bunch."

Saya frowns. "So why do I keep seeing it?"

"Ah! To understand that, you must understand the _Queens_!"

Nathan opens his extravagant kimono, revealing an onyx-black _juban_ underneath. He sidles closer, tucking the heavy silk around Saya. The gesture is as companionable as it is confusing.

Then Saya realizes she is shivering. Something is lodged in her bones: dream, dread. The Chevalier's warmth prickles her skin. His scent is like wood sap in her nostrils, faint and familiar.

"The Queens may seem tyrannical monsters," Nathan sighs. "Certainly, their world was excitedly engorged on atrocity and awfulness. But—darling!—isn't the _modern_ world the same? Disasters brew to sustain First World Nations the same as elsewhere—thriving out of sight. Humans kill for riches. For religion. They innovate toys both epic and destructive to safeguard their ideals. They rise to the top of victory, and then come crashing down to depravity, and then up again, and then down again, and on and on until they wipe themselves out." He sniffs disdainfully. "Not so with the _Queens_ , my dove. They neither knew nor cared about money or silly Judeo-Christian value systems. Their sole purview was _balance_."

"Balance?"

"The law of equivalent exchange! Never take more than one gives." He crooks a finger. "You may fixate on the human sacrifice angle. But for each boy the Queens chose as a Chevalier, they killed the rejects as payment for the gifts they bestowed upon the village. Cofferfuls of gold. Livestock and cloth. Whale-fat and weapons. Soldiers for protection. The Red Queen would declare the territory her demesne—and shield it from pestilence and invasion alike. She would establish laws to keep the peace. Protect women, children and the elderly. Similarly, the Blue Queen would send her handmaids—the Vǫlur—to cure ills with herbs and potions. Women not unlike the _yuta_ of the Ryukyus. They healed the sick and conversed with the spirits, spreading the Queen's arcane arts far and wide. For the Queens—both of them—understood that their lives were infinite, but their empire was not. They would rule only a little while... before the humans grew into their own."

A flare of nostalgia crosses his features, before shading to grimness. "The Queens' rule came at a price. Rape and murder were punishable by death. So was treason. Those found guilty would be executed by the Red Queen herself. The criminal's family would be shunned thereafter, as a reminder to abide by What Is Written _._ " His eyes flick to hers, blue and glittering. "Humanity ought to be _grateful_. Without the Queens, they would know nothing of warfare or song. Nothing of law, art, science, astronomy. Nothing of magick itself."

Saya squints dubiously. "Magick?"

He raises his eyebrows. "You met a talking snake. You've got no room to squawk."

"But—"

" _Hush_." The kimono is draped closer around her, warm as the womb. "Listen for once in your life. You might live when this is over."

Saya scowls but says nothing.

"You know of _Seiðr_ ," Nathan says. "The Queens' gift of sorcery. It is rooted in your blood. But your blood carries more _useful_ secrets still."

"Secrets?"

"Call it genetic 'memory.' Skills and strengths of Queens, passed down through DNA. The lives of your ancestors may not govern your day-to-day behaviors. But they play a hand in saving your life in moments of danger—through transmitted memories and instincts alike."

Saya thinks of when she fought the mysterious Chevalier in Gokokuji Cemetery. She remembers the moment he'd pinned her against the tree. Some natural mechanism had switched on. A red-tide of nature sharpening her body, transforming her hand into a claw that skewered his eyes out.

She hasn't been able to replicate the attack. Maybe it is only possible in extremis?

"Of course," Nathan says, "genetic memory is only the _tip_ of the dagger."

"What do you mean?"

"Queens have long existed in a state betwixt and between. Neither good nor evil. Similarly, their powers encompass the center of everything, yet also its darkest edges. Among the Blodfødt, telepathy and retro-recognition are common. Queens see the words we do not speak. The lives we once lived. They are also capable of _pathworking_. Stepping out of their bodies, to hold counsel with their dead kin. Daughters with mothers. Sisters with sisters. We call the place where they convene Niflheimr. A limbo where spirits with unfinished business reside, until their will is done."

Saya's breath falters. A phantom aria races through the chambers of her skull, keeping pace with the rapid throb of her heart.

"Diva," she blurts.

Nathan's face is a sly twist. "So you've done it? Spoken with your sister in dreams?"

Saya shivers, and nods.

"What about your mother? The Blue Queen? Any messages from her?"

Saya wants to leap up. To cover her ears and run off screaming. But there is an icy disconnect between her mind and body.

"I keep having flashes," she whispers. "Of the snake. But also of a far-off place. A woman with two blades. A woman in a tower. Dead babies. Battles. Is that—?"

 _My mother,_ she wants to ask.

Nathan's expression dries up the words in her throat. His features somehow distort themselves, the smooth human mask elongating into sharpness. His eyes shrink into glowing red slits, lips curling back to show fangs. He resembles a fox in all but fact, the energy bristling off him a hellish-red.

Saya tries to twist away. But his arm encircles her tighter. It isn't a threat. In a shocky compartment of her mind, Saya understands that her words have pierced the encasing of indifference around Nathan's core.

For once—in eons?—this ancient aberration of a Chevalier is _happy_.

"So," he says, "it's not _one_ Queen communing with you. It's _three_."

"Wh-what?"

Nathan's lips curve wistfully. "Just as you had a sister, so did your mother. Hers was the Red Queen. _Sunako_. A fierce warrior, with a temper to outblaze the sun. She was her sister's equal in every way. Hair like a black cobra coiled around her neck. Lips so red your eyes bled just staring at them. She was wild where your mother was whimsical. For that, she suffered in ways different from your mother. But no less terrible."

"Was she—" Saya wets her lips. "Was she also locked in a tower?"

Nathan shakes his head. "Worse. Her Chevaliers betrayed her, as they did your mother. Upon lapsing into Long Sleep, Sunako was made into a war-weapon. They dragged her from battlefield to battlefield. They fed her blood, and let her go berserk, killing everyone in her path. She suffered greater indignities still. A Queen in hibernation cannot conceive, so her Chevaliers—may Sigyn slit their throats—had no qualms using her for their pleasure. They already had a broodmare for children, you see."

"My mother," Saya whispers.

She shifts in Nathan's embrace, restless with residual memory. The Chevalier lays a warm palm between her shoulderblades. Not comforting her, but keeping her close.

"After your mother passed, Sunako took it upon herself to exact vengeance. To hunt down those who had devastated her family, and the realm itself. Many allied themselves to her cause. Sages. Mages. Midwives. Through a heady brew of sorcery, they conjured a protective talisman. A _fylgja_ —or spirit creature—for our Queen. It served as her gateway to the ancestral otherworld. At the same time, it possessed a physical body, to play her sentinel."

Saya's eyes widen. "The snake."

"That's right." Nathan's gaze makes a slow circuit of the skyline; he centers on the rising moon. "The sigil of Sunako's dynasty. _Your_ dynasty. An emissary from the great beyond. The snake's messages were always prefaced with a name. _Saya_. A reminder of what Sunako had lost. Her sister, dead and cold in the tomb. The Blodfødt's reign, undone by monsters."

"Monsters?"

"Six brothers." He laughs, and it is a terrible sound. Something beyond conjuring even in nightmares. "Six hefty, hearty, heartless peasants. They were from the sea-village of Gjógv. Hand-chosen by the Vǫlur—no doubt for their prowess with swords and sophistry alike. Three were given to the Red Queen, and three to the Blue. As Chevaliers, they were welcomed into our inner sanctum. And it cost us the empire."

Wind curls silky-cool around Saya's body. The sky is banded with an opalescent sheen, the diffuse moon buoyed by rain-scudded clouds.

In the glow, Nathan's features are muted with memory.

"I repeat: the Queens' world was a wicked one. But it was colorful and colossal, brimful with a wealth of cultures, languages and peoples. All of it erased from the world's collective memory by those self-serving warmongers. From day one, they went to work. Double-rationing discord to sow among humans. Dangling lures of distrust before Chevaliers. Day by day, year by year, they nursed disputes across the land. Destroying an empire is like raising a child, you see. It takes time, and patience, and planning. But once their labor bore fruit— _oh_."

His eyes fall shut, and the words ache with remembered suffering. "It was like the outbreak of the plague. Bloodier. An _apocalypse_. Empires sustain themselves on secrecy. The six brothers leaked every secret there was, until the humans were swollen with them. Swollen with their own hubris. They learnt how to anticipate each Queen's weakness. Worse. How to orchestrate her demise."

Saya's jaw aches with the thousand words caught behind her teeth. The tombs are silent around her, as if all their ghosts are intent on Nathan's story.

The Chevalier reaches to pluck a fluffball off his sleeve. When he withdraws his hand, there is a vial caught between his thumb and forefinger. Saya recognizes it as a replica of the one he'd given her at the villa.

Nathan lifts the vial to the moonlight. The pale purple liquid glitters within. He turns it over the way a jeweler might appraise an amethyst.

"You say the snake had a vial in its belly?"

Saya nods.

"Did it look exactly like this?"

She shakes her head. "There was a crest on its stopper. A snake biting its tail, with a moon in the center." The sigil of her ancestors, she realizes. "There was poison inside it. Wolfsbane."

Nathan closes one eye, and stares at the refraction of moonlight inside the vial: soft and filtered, a rippling distortion.

"In those days—these days—wolfsbane was intimately tied to Queens," he says. "Indeed, the crime of _veneficium_ —poisoning—could only be carried out by a _veneficia_. A sorceress. This, like much else, was mankind's sideswipe on the powers of the Queens. They are credited with inventing the art of poisoning. Especially through use of the Aconitum plant. Queens recorded its power to heal as well as harm. It might also interest you to know that in our tongue, the word _gift_ means _poison_."

Saya's eyes narrow. "You gave me a smiliar vial as a gift."

"It was intended to be." Nathan tosses the vial into the air. Moments later, Saya feels its cool weight in her pocket. "Wolfsbane, by itself, cannot hurt us. But it becomes a catastrophe or a cure, once mixed with other ingredients."

"Ingredients?"

"Alchemical and necromantical elements. I'll explain those another time." He tents his long red-rimmed fingers and brings them to his lips. "Wolfsbane, for the Blodfødt, symbolized boundaries. _Liminalities_. It corresponded perfectly with the Queens, who were creatures of otherness. Neither mortal nor _mareridt_. The plant helped them to move freely between spaces and states. From girlhood to motherhood. From life to death."

Saya feels a familiar chill rising. The moment is like a brokerage of secret, sickening knowledge.

"The six brothers," she whispers. "They told the humans about the wolfsbane. They used the knowledge to wipe the Queens out."

Nathan nods. There is a vacant glint to his eyes, the expression of a man who has lived for years in a cave, and become opiated on his self-imposed exile.

"In mythology, wolfsbane is tied to werewolves and vampires," he says. "For good reason. Like the Queens, such tales deal with liminal beings. Those who exist beyond boundaries. It's also why wolfsbane is considered a talisman. In many places in Europe, villagers nailed the flowers to their doors. A protective ward against the night-folk."

"Against us, you mean."

This earns her a sly smile. "Merciful Magni! She learns at last!" The humor fades. "The first vial I gave you was the Queen's ancient decoction for fertility. To get you gravid with daughters. My second vial contains the same ingredients. It won't harm you—or your little ones—in the least."

"What about the vial the snake was carrying?" Saya asks. "Is it the same?"

"A thousand times no."

"So where did it come from?"

Nathan laughs. That same nightmare laugh that rolls through her like a fire across a rope. It is different this time. Something she can recognize and draw meaning from. Memory gusts like smoke through her skull…

 _Horses corralled to a copse of old trees. Their two bodies bedded down on cold hard earth. Nathan's arms wrapped around her; his mouth against her nape. Not an ounce of carnality in the touch; they are spooned together for warmth, like nearly every night. She is bone-weary, carrying woe like a pebble in her shoes. He cheers her up with snatches of ballads and inventive twists of swearwords, until a wan smile flickers on her lips._

 _"We will find him," he tells her. "We will make known his fall to one and all."_

 _"We will." Her fingers tighten around the vial, the moonlight glossing its seal. "Or die trying."_

Saya tumbles out of the vision, its surrealism still singing through her bones. A name dances on her tongue like a champagne bubble—then bursts before she can articulate it.

 _Find him?_

 _Who?_

"In the Queen's court," Nathan says, "sages, mages and midwives used wolfsbane in two ways. One was for _føða_. Birth. The other was for _deyði._ Death _._ Queens used the former, diluted in small doses like for the tincture I gifted you, to get pregnant by their Chevaliers. They used the latter, in larger doses, to perform abortions. As your mother did, during her imprisonment. She took the largest dose, in a final act of defiance, for her death."

Saya frowns. "Wasn't she carrying me and Diva? How come the poison didn't affect us?"

Nathan's gaze pins her. She feels his eyes across her body, a scrutiny that isn't sexual, but fascinated in a different way: as if his mind lacks the capacity to understand an oddity such as herself.

"That," he says, "is sorcery even _I_ am not privy to."

The words skate uneasily through Saya. Her hand goes into her pocket. Her fingers clutch at the vial. "And the snake? Why was it carrying wolfsbane?"

"For you."

" _Me_?"

His face resumes its default smirk. "When Sunako embarked on her journey to destroy the six brothers, she was entrusted with the vial for _deyði._ Death by wolfsbane. A gift—like the snake itself—from a sage, a mage, and a midwife. It was a last resort against her enemy. By then, Chiropterans were all but extinct. With them died the arcane art of poison-making. The vial Sunako carried was, like her, the last of its kind."

"So," Saya hesitates, "the snake held the vial for safekeeping?"

"In a sense." His eyes hold a far-off glaze. "Sunako was successful at hunting down the six brothers. All but one. The youngest and cleverest."

"Her last Chevalier."

"That's right. Her last—as I am the Blue Queen's last. Her favorite—as I was the Blue Queen's favorite."

Realization trickles in, and Saya's breath shivers out. "She _loved_ him."

"For all the good it did her," Nathan scoffs. "Let it be a lesson, darling. Pick the loyal ones over the thrill-seeking louts. You'll _live_ longer."

"So he killed her?"

"He tried. Many times. But she proved cleverer. For centuries, she chased him across continents. For their final battle, they faced off right here. On Yabuchi Island."

"Yabuchi…"

Saya's throat dries up. Knowledge in red puzzle pieces falls through her, fitting the blank spots. She trembles on the edge of epiphany, the puzzle melting into blood, curdling her senses with songs and slaughter and screams...

 _The heart of a battle. Unending sheets of rain. Arrows flying left and right. A woman wielding two blades, her nerves a twist of adrenaline, her body knee-deep in corpses stretched across a landscape of snarled trees and jagged-hewn rocks. A solitary shape at the sea-shore, his face half-shadowed. But as lightning splits across the storm-tossed sky, his eyes glow blue…_

She closes her eyes, hoping the memories will fade. But they are still there a few seconds later.

"Sunako lost her life in that battle," Nathan says. "The brother, meanwhile, was sealed off in a cave. The serpent was tasked with watching over him. To warn Sunako's closest kin, if he ever escaped."

Saya swallows. "Me."

"That's right. The serpent has been warning you all this time. About the threat to you. To your family. The vial in its belly is also yours. To use against that traitorous Chevalier. To finish what Sunako could not."

Saya breathes. In and out, trying for the old trick of calm. But the thud of her pulse keeps filtering back to her. She jerks out of Nathan's arms and to her feet. Her instincts are at war with one another; her body is in the grip of tremors.

"The snake," she says, "It was inside a man's body. Before he died, he said a girl set him free. A girl who looked like me. Except her eyes were blue."

"Oh?" Nathan offers the blithest of shrugs. "Maybe the shlub was hallucinating."

"That's too specific for a hallucination!"

"And too vague for a confirmation." He brushes it off. "Diva or no Diva, something _is_ brewing. Something cooked up by that traitor Chevalier."

"What is he after?"

"The usual. Disorder. Domination. Daughters."

" _Daughters_?"

"He is the Red Queen's last Chevalier. Groom to your mother, and her kin. He can beget daughters off you—and use them to craft a hellscape to his liking." His eyes narrow. "Tell me. Where is the _deyði_ vial right now?"

"It's with Red Shield." Saya inhales slowly. "It's being kept in containment."

"See that it remains so." He rises and dusts himself off. "Until the time comes."

"The time?"

"When you use it to kill him."

"Why can't I just use my blood?"

Nathan shakes his head. "Your blood will sicken him. Not slay him. Therein lies the difference between a Queen and her offspring. Her sister's Chevaliers possess… how should I put it? An _immunity_ to their niece's blood." His eyes narrow. "What's more, our traitor has the gift of _skala hud._ Scaled skin. One of the powers inherited from Sunako. He can harden his body into an exoskeleton that deters bullets or blades."

Saya bites her lip. "Like James Ironside."

"Similar to James—delightful dud that he was—except our traitor is more flexible with his armor. He can wield it whether he is fully transformed, or not. The only way to pierce him is by either immense injury, or…"

"Or?"

"Let it not come to that."

Nathan slips off his kimono. He drapes it around Saya like a blanket. It is a spilling softness, a steadiness of weight. In the moonglow, the embroidery is an incandescent pattern of reds and ivories and blacks. Their shimmer reminds Saya of her visions; each thread finer than cobweb, and yet trapping her inside a thousand scintillas of memory.

Nathan's lips brush her cheek. The small hairs of Saya's nape stand on end. She twists away. " _What_?"

The Chevalier's eyes are the same color as the kimono. Blood red.

"Use the _føða_ vial tonight," he says. "The fertility tincture. Use it to conceive daughters."

"I can't use it _now_!"

"Now is the only time. To delay your Long Sleep. To have a layer of safety." His lips twist tauntingly. "Unless you prefer that viper's spawn in your belly."

Saya winces. Somehow, _viper_ is a fitting descriptor. A Chevalier slippery with treachery. Trapped for eons in a cave. Like the _habu_. She remembers Tórir saying that they could survive for decades on water. Perfect predators, he called them…

 _Tórir._

Trapped in numb paralysis, Saya remembers their kiss. The magnetism between them was undeniable. Disquieting. Nothing like she feels for Haji: his raven hair and sculpted cheekbones a haunting allure. There is something different about Tórir. A connection both feral and ancient, built on blood and bonemeal.

A primal recognition.

 _"I crawled out of Hell just for you. I am here to give you a taste."_

Saya's heart skips two beats—a tachycardia lapsing into terror. In her mind's eye, she is battling for her life at Gokukuji Cemetery. She is at Makishi Market, talking about vipers and mythology. She is in Karachi, the cool heaviness of a naked body spooning hers. She is sprawled across the highway, staring at a silhouette beyond the car wreck's heat-shimmer. She is in Taipei, spotting the logo of six arrows sunk into a coiled snake. She is at the flower carnival, a rough palm on her neck, a mouth opening against hers like a furnace to scorch out all sense...

 _"Love is a waiting game. And I am nearly done biding my time."_

She thinks of two-toned eyes. Thinks of witticisms and warnings. Catastrophe cloaked in flashing colors.

Red. Blue.

 _Tórir._

She knows who he is.

* * *

 _As always, I'm eager to know y'all's thoughts on this installment! Was it too much of an info!dump? Was it too heavy-handed or required too much suspension of disbelief? Was the Queens' history too tied in with woo-woo and nu-age blatherings?_

 _Lemme know, and hope y'all have a great weekend! :)_


	40. Disaster

_Happy 2020, everyone! :)  
_

 _I can't believe this fic started way back in 2018. I also can't believe we've finally hit the 40 chapter mark - only 10 more installments to go! It's been a funshiny and confuzzling ride, but your wonderful comments continue to motivate me more than words can say! Hopefully the final few chapters will pack a satisfying punch, and deliver some nice pay-offs along the way!_

 _Speaking of-_

 _Camp Evil's plan slowly unveils itself, and the plot thickens like the roux of a particularly unpalatable gumbo. CW for violence and bloodshed. There's lots of spy-game type drama up ahead. Think the last season of the series, basically._

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

 _ **SilverSurfer808:** Holding up okay, Otonashi-san?_

 _ **SayaEatsSukiyaki:** I'm ok, Ezra. Have u found anything about the poison?_

 _ **SilverSurfer808:** We're still examining it. Maybe by later tonight we'll have something._

 _ **SilverSurfer808:** Where are you right now?_

 _ **SayaEatsSukiyaki:** Chatan. Getting ready to meet Lewis._

 _ **SilverSurfer808:** Be careful. I'll keep you updated on our analysis._

 _ **SayaEatsSukiyaki:** ty!_

 _ **SilverSurfer808:** :) xox_

* * *

 _Search Google or Type a URL_

 _Yabuchi Island news_

 _Nihon Daihyakka Zensho_

 _Katsuren Peninsula, Yokatsu Islands_

 _The Katsuren Peninsula extends south from Okinawa Island. It is approximately 1.7 to 2.6 kilometers wide, and covers a distance of 15 square kilometers. It is the gateway to the eight Yokatsu Islands. It also served as the home base for two U.S. military facilities, Camp Courtney and White Beach, until 2032._

 _Yabuchi-jima (_ _藪地島_ _) is one of the primary Yokatsu Islands, situated to the east of the Katsuren Peninsula. It extends roughly 0.62 square kilometers._

 _The islet is accessible via a small bridge at Yakena harbor—but the paved road ends as soon as the island begins. The terrain is lush, consisting of Ryuūkyū Kuroki, flowering hibiscus, fig trees, and kogon grass. A portion of the island is devoted to rice cultivation. It is also home to a thriving population of habu—Okinawa's poisonous pit vipers._

 _At the islet's southernmost tip is Janeh Cave, a popular tourist destination. A deeper network of limestone caves—many still unexcavated—extend through the island's heavy jungle. Among these are the Yabuchi Cave Ruins. Here, in 1959, archaeologists discovered shell arrowheads and pottery dating as far back as 6500 years old. The caves also boast a number of Ryukyuan shrines._

 _For the past decades, Yabuchi has remained uninhabited. Legend goes that ancient spirits burn down any house constructed on the islet._

 _A warning that mortals are unwelcome._

* * *

9-39 Mihama

Chatan-chō, Nakagami-gun

Okinawa-ken 904-0115

Saya lowers her phone to her lap. The screen feels greasy under her palms.

At 3 p.m, it is a scorcher. The sky is an unbroken, piercing blue. At the sea, the sun is a sine wave radiating layer after layer of heat. The humidity presses against her, beads of sweat blooming along her hairline.

Blowing a breath through puffed cheeks, Saya smooths her dress primly towards her knees. Then, not-so-primly, tugs at her neckline, because— _God_. Is that a hickey or a heat-rash on her breastbone?

A pale hand appears. It holds a bottle of water, icy-wet with condensation.

" _Oh_! Thanks, Haji."

Saya accepts it, but doesn't take a drink. Just presses the bottle to her cheek, soaking up its coolness.

Her Chevalier, as usual, is impervious to the heat. He stands by her bench, in a black suit—linen, not the bloodstain-resistant worsted twill—the creases precise as a uniform, his expression an equally precise combination of boredom and alertness.

Everything should set him apart from the crowd of tourists dotting Mihama Sea Wall—the sunburnt Europeans, the badly-dressed Americans, the cheerfully jawing Chinese, all of whom are stripped nearly to their colorful skivvies in the sunshine.

But as always, Haji channels the chameleon in himself and blends in.

They are waiting on Kai and the twins—not a family get-together but a rendezvous with an informant. One of Lewis' ex-CIA buddies, who has intel on the farm at Yabuchi Island, but is unwilling to compromise his affiliations by handing the information over via technological conduits.

They've agreed to meet in a neutral zone. There is a shopping plaza not far off. Restaurants, bars, cafes. Crowded enough that there will be plenty of cover, but open enough to circumvent any threats, be it through quick identification of newcomers, or quicker exits.

In the meantime, it is all-too-easy for Saya and Haji to play lovebirds on an outing.

Walking hand-in-hand, gazing at the scenery, they familiarize themselves with the terrain. The American village is heavily dotted with tourists and locals; that makes it easier for Saya and Haji to blend in. They've already noted the security points (a bank, a high-end bar, cameras in the parking lots); the patterns of pedestrians (to and from the Sunset Walk and the plaza); the smartest vantage points (the ferris wheel, Depot Island's buildings, the Hilton).

So far, nothing seems out of place. No signs of set-up or surveillance. Even so, their group will be converging from separate points—and keeping V and Sachi ready as lookouts: half-sniper, half-cavalry.

Smokescreen. Subterfuge. Strategy. Familiar elements of another life.

 _No_ , Saya thinks.

 _The same one._

She must stop measuring everything by that touchstone. Before Diva. After Diva. Yet the knowledge hits her today—she is thirty-two years and four months without Diva, and the only thing it fills her with is a queasy ache.

 _Unless she's alive..._

"The others should arrive shortly," Haji says then.

She takes a breath around her stumbling heartbeat. Hopes Haji won't notice the split-second's jumpiness. Lost cause. Her Chevalier's body shifts fractionally toward hers, a living satellite.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"Yeah." Her reflexive smile becomes real as their eyes meet. "I'm just—overheated. You'd think after so long in Okinawa, I'd be used to the sun."

"You can sit in the café ahead. I will keep watch."

" _You_ shouldn't stand outside so long, either. Are you wearing sunscreen?"

Haji smiles at the question as much as her tone—both girlfriendly concern and queenly chiding.

It occurs to Saya how unaccustomed he still is to routine bestowals of routine kindness from her. Guilt pricks at her. It is offset by the frisson of consolation in the moment. In the pink rose of intimacy flowering between them, that no crisis can uproot.

Last night, she'd told him and her family about Tórir. About the conversation with Nathan. About the history of her bloodline, and the bloodier roots of her visions. Julia had theorized something called _epigenetic imprinting_. Ancestral memories passed down through DNA. As to the talking serpent, and Akamine's description of a Maybe-Diva… she couldn't say. Currently, she and Ezra are studying the vial from the snake's belly.

With luck, it will yield answers.

Haji, on his part, was dubious of Nathan's tale. But his stubborn logical streak cannot negate the mysteries they have witnessed. Mysteries that go beyond espionage and government conspiracies. Even beyond bloodthirsty monsters. As Chiropterans, they already occupy a twilit world of impossibility. The introduction of—sorcery?—is bewildering but not inconceivable.

The world isn't yet devoid of secrets. Their selves? Less so.

 _Sorcery is one thing._

 _But the dead coming back to life?_

"Saya?"

Haji's voice interrupts the tug of misgiving at her mind. And, she realizes, her fingers on his sleeve.

"Oh."

Embarrassed, she drops her hand. "Sorry. Just—" She exhales. "You know I hate lulls. They give me a chance to—"

 _Think._

 _Nothing good ever happens when I think._

Haji's look is at once pensive and gentle. "Saya, whatever is happening—" The _Whatever_ that tests the limits of sanity, "—We will get answers."

"I hope so. But—"

"What?"

Staring down at her lap, she whispers, "I'd been telling myself for so long that the war was over. Finally, I could be normal. But now—"

Now reality and unreality are seeping into the serenity she'd clutched at. Distorting it into a nightmare.

Haji reaches to tuck her hair behind her ear. The cool cup of his palm meets her cheek. "It needn't be so one-dimensional. For the moment, you are staying vigilant. But the crisis will pass. When it does, your life will still be there."

"Will it?" She lets off a sigh. "Or am I just fooling myself?"

"You are fooling yourself now. Reducing your existence to one thing. To fighting and fretting."

"But if Tórir is trying to kill us—" Just saying it makes her chest tighten "—then what else matters?"

"You do," he says simply. "Your choices do. They have brought you this far. And they will keep you going."

She manages a half-smile. His words don't soften the temperature of her grey mood. But they make her feel something: a gratitude that expands through her like the sunlight.

Impulsively, she nuzzles the hand cradling her cheek, and kisses it.

"You're being awfully calm," she murmurs.

He crooks a brow. _Aren't I always?_

"Will you stay that way if I tell you—"

"What?"

"He... kissed me." The words slip out before she can stop them. "Tórir."

Haji's expression doesn't change. But a glint of fury chills his eyes.

"It was at the flower carnival. After our phonecall." Her hands tremble. She tightens them around her bottled water. "I was going to tell you sooner. But… after that snake, we had bigger problems. Still, I keep wondering—"

"What?"

"Why didn't I realize who he was? The first time I saw him, I felt a weird déjà vu. I thought he resembled someone I knew. _Diva_. Except he's so much worse. Diva did everything by impulse. He—he does every vile thing for a _reason_. That night when Adam was attacked at Sakurazaka street… that was him. The fight in Gokokuji Cemetary… he was there to get my blood. In Karachi, he tried to have Yuri kidnapped. While I was at the hotel, he slipped into my room. He _killed_ our daughters." She swallows bile. "He's been circling us all this time. Just waiting to strike."

"Do you believe he is still in Okinawa?"

"He must be. Red Shield are searching for a paper trail, or aliases. But—" Her anger helixes with hatred. "I don't _care_ about that. I need to find him. And kill him… for taking our daughters."

Haji's fury is displaced by concern. "Nathan claimed he wanted daughters off _you_."

"An empire." She recalls the visions conjured by Tórir's closeness. "He'll do anything to have it."

"He will not have you."

"I—"

Haji kneels beside her. Not like a knight swearing fealty, but a deeply protective man who carries inside him a world of softness—ready to harden from extreme pressures into a diamond, its edges sharp enough to kill.

"I have stood by while he hurt you before," he says. "I will not allow it again."

"Haji…"

"Please. Make me a promise."

Disquiet burns a dark hole inside her. "…A promise?"

Haji's eyes narrow. "If he baits you, promise you will not act recklessly."

"I can't do that."

"Saya—"

"I _can't_ , Haji. If there he's out there right now—if he's a threat to the girls—to you or Kai—" Rage burns through her bones. She tamps the sparking emotion down and lets it smoke. Better to concentrate, deal with one thing at a time. "I need to know what he's planning. To stop it, before it blows out of control."

"Then stay in control."

"What?"

"Today, Lewis' contact will have the information we need. Tomorrow, we will have a plan. We will proceed from there. In stages, or in a counterstrike. For now, we must wait."

Saya bites her lip.

He's right. If trouble is brewing, she needs to stay focused—because no one else can say for sure when her erratic swings between vengeance and jitters stop being symptoms of a long-gone war, but impediments to stopping another one. She has to be a soldier, and she has to be smart.

"Haji…"

He kisses her, robbing the moment of its ratcheting tension. Robbing her of other things. Breath, and balance, and brainwaves, and… _Oh_. His hair falls close to her face. She threads her fingers into the dark drifts of it. The strands are always redolent with microscopic motes of rosin, but also something that reminds her of the Zoo, as if he carries traces of their childhood home with him wherever they go.

She could stay here, breathing him in, until sunset.

Then Haji pulls away, inhaling slowly, "I should keep watch."

"Y-Yeah."

Blushing, she looks away. Fusses with the neckline of her dress again—that blotch is _definitely_ a hickey—a different heat unfurling through her, a hot red blossom of want.

She could have had this in the war. Could have—but refused to. The parenthesis of her thoughts always enclosed _pleasure_ and _wrongness_ together. Always telling her that there was something awful about the mere fact of wanting comfort. Because otherwise she was no different from Diva.

Strange, how the passage of time has erased those differences so completely—while delineating without words her truest self.

" _Hai tai_!"

In the midst of the blue slice of sea, the morning joggers, the low-flying pigeons, Yumi and Yuri emerge. As always one looks like she tumbled out of bed after a night of sexy shenanigans and straight into a gym hamper—baby-tee, shorty-shorts, messy ponytail. The other is the picture of poised elegance in a blue polka-dot vintage dress, one delicate palm across her big belly.

Kai is behind them, glowering as he hauls a colorful assortment of shopping bags. They look like any other family—a surly dad out with his cheerfully retail-obsessed daughters.

Except it is a façade. Saya knows the bags hold choice weaponry. They've come prepared.

Yumi greets her with her usual peppy pounce; Yuri with a perfumed air-kiss that lingers on the skin.

"The weather's awful today," Yuri says. "I hope you two didn't wait long."

It's not a pleasantry but a code. _The coast is clear._

"Not long," Saya replies. "We were going to get ice cream."

Re: _Nothing unusual here, either._

"Sounds good," says Yumi, with a feline stretch. "It's so fuggen' hot I could dump a milkshake over my head." Then, squinting, "Is that a hickey on your boob, Saya?"

No code there. Just Yumi being Yumi.

Kai clears his throat pointedly. "Our _friend_ is near the Pink Dracula walk. Let's go."

* * *

Lewis preens over his plate of dessert—generous pink scoops of just-starting-to-melt ice cream topped over fluffy golden slices of French toast, all of it nestled within a glistening tumble of strawberries, swimming with red syrup, and lovingly dusted with powdered sugar.

The sight makes Kai queasy. His own coffee rests untasted.

"Can't beat R-Café's Berry Paradise." Lewis declares. "I always drop by for a bowl. Or ten."

Because the entrances and exits in this place would complicate an ambush, Kai thinks.

Beaming, Lewis shovels a spoonful into his mouth. Chews energetically and belches. "Mmmmm. The toast crunches so warm and sweet in your mouth. And the ice cream just oozes across your tastebuds. I could eat a hundred of these."

His sallow-faced colleague—who introduced himself as _Chase_ , obviously a pseudonym—bends over the table, clutching his stomach. "I'll never forgive you for picking this spot, Sammy! I'm a Type 1 diabetic with a sweet-tooth, for chrissakes!"

"You should've kept an insulin pen at hand." _Om nom nom_. "I'm going to try the Mango Madness next."

"You goddamn sadist!"

"C'mon! Have a strawberry. Rich in antioxidants."

"It's dripping in syrup!"

"So it is." Lewis pops the morsel into his mouth. " _Delicious_."

Chase covers his eyes, like one-third of the Three Wise Monkeys.

Kai shakes his head. Lewis hasn't changed. As solid a guy as any Kai has ever known—but food remains his biggest weakness. Perched on the tiny stool at the café, he resembles an ice cream scoop himself, belly spilling over the waist of his pants like soft-serve over a cone.

He's pulled some strings with the Agency to arrange this meeting. His contact, Chase, hasn't disclosed his affiliations. But Kai has been in the business long enough to surmise he's a case-officer with the CIA. On a rotation from Langley to Okinawa—but making an off-the-record stop on the way.

Physically, he is a paper-pusher: fortyish and scrawny, his buttondown shirt already ringed with crystallizing deodorant stains. But his eyes are sharp as cocktail swords.

He and Lewis occupy one of the café's indoor booths—superficially catching up on old times. Kai is a few tables off, facing Lewis, the conversation fed to him by a hidden earpiece. In the corner, concealed from the entrance, are the three Queens and Haji. _The Crow and the three Cassowaries,_ Lewis has dubbed them good-humoredly.

Kai can see them, a twelve-inch slice of peripheral vision. Saya, Yumi, and Yuri, chattering happily over their plates of spicy _tacobene_ , the role of three-girls-out coming naturally. Haji, sitting across them, perfectly still, more technology than biology, an antenna attuned to their surroundings with all five Chiropteran senses. Like Kai, they all have commo earpieces, but only Yumi and Yuri need them.

Haji and Saya can read lips in five different languages.

"So tell me," Lewis says between mouthfuls of dessert. "This farm at Yabuchi. _Hikage Okome._ Who owns it?"

Chase hesitates. "You get that this is classified. Right?"

Lewis cheerfully pops another strawberry into his mouth.

"Okay. Okay." Chase sighs. "You already know about IBM-UAWA. How they were indicted for industrial espionage a coupla years ago?"

Lewis' laugh is a facetious roll. "It rings a few bells."

"Yeah, well. The company didn't disband because of one little lawsuit. Why would they? They did what any organization does—outsourced to foreign countries. One of their biggest branches was in Okinawa. Something called _Project Epsilon_. A biopharma operation focused on augmenting the Blue Pill." He grows distinctly ill-at-ease. "The Agency assigned me to monitor them. I was an unofficial plant."

"'Unofficial'?"

"You know. The 'No Gloves' syndrome. No fingerprints, no accusations." Chase sighs. "Superficially, I was assigned in case of fishy business. There were reports that _Project Epsilon_ had nothing to do with the Blue Pill. It was a cover for biological terrorism. Eugenics. Brainwashing. Genetic augmentation. The project was designed to create super-soldiers. Based on prior records from Cinq Flèches Pharmaceuticals—and Delta67."

Kai stops mid-sip on his coffee. Lewis, on the other hand, doesn't miss a beat.

"Since you're still in Okinawa," he says amiably. "I guess the Agency didn't come flying in like the Wrath of God."

"Nope," Chase says. "Like I said. My role was 'unofficial.' The guys in Langley were happy to look the other way—since the US was originally one of _Project Epsilon's_ financers. They assigned me after concerns that it was receiving competing grants. One from us. Another from the Chinese. If that was true… if some geopolitical event occurred that could be pinned back to us… then we needed to, er…"

Lewis' smile conveys innocence for its own sake. "Cover your assets."

"Bingo," says Chase. "That was the original plan. Until everything went sideways."

Lewis crooks a brow over his sunglasses.

" _Project Epsilon_ was originally based out of a dry-foods factory in Yabuchi island. A convenient front, to keep the authorities out of our business." The pallor of Chase's face drains to eggshell-white. And like eggshell, his voice cracks. "Its head scientist was a kid named Carsten Andresen. A genius, but incredibly irresponsible. Plenty of his test subjects were brought in via illegal back-channels. They died _horribly_. One of 'em managed to escape the factory. But he died before he could make it off the island. For IBM-UAWA's board-of-directors, it was too much. They cut _Project Epsilon_ loose. There were orders to raze the factory. On my end, the Agency recalled me back to the States."

Lewis smiles. None of Chase's information is new to him—or anyone else listening in. But this adds a whole new dimension to the intel.

"As I've noted," Lewis says, " _you're_ still here."

"For good reason. Or bad, depending on your angle." Chase swallows. "Carsten didn't take the board's rejection kindly. A few weeks later, he contacted me. He'd found a bona fide Chiropteran. _Better_. A Chevalier."

This sets Kai's heart skipping like a bad record. From the corner of his eye, Haji and three Queens carry on talking. But Kai notices that Saya has begun shredding her napkin, an idle exercise of fingers that belies her escalating tension.

"When I first heard, I called bullshit," Chase says. "Then Carsten filmed a demonstration for IBM-UAWA. I watched him do it. I saw the Chevalier survive sarin gas and gunshots. I watched as he threatened to break out of his containment pod. There was no doubt about it. He was the real deal."

"What did the Agency say?" Lewis asks.

"To stay close. To give Carsten enough rope. They even gave the project a private sobriquet."

"Oh?"

" _Operation Mistakeholder_."

Lewis guffaws. "Lord, but that's better than the others. Operation Beaver Cage. Operation Frequent Wind. Operation Blowdown…"

"Quit it, Sammy." Chase sticks a pinkie into Lewis' sundae. He licks it like an addict relapsing on cocaine. "As it was, Carsten's demonstration intrigued the board. IBM-UAWA agreed to recontract him, and give him full reign over _Project Epsilon_."

"I thought he was just a kid?"

"He is."

"So how does he keep control over a Chevalier?"

Chase looks away. "The Chevalier is controlling _him_. That moron doesn't even realize it. He thinks he's achieved his childhood dream. Befriended Iron Man or the Black Panther."

" _Hey_!" Lewis aims with his spoon. "Keep T'challa out of this."

"This isn't funny, Sammy." Chase drags both hands through his hair. "Thanks to that Chevalier, _Project Epsilon_ has fast-tracked through IBM-UAWA's ranks. Currently it's their ace in the hole. That laboratory full of Chiropterans in Taipei? That was them. They even tapped ex-players from D67 to facilitate their research."

"Ex-players?"

"Dr. Aston Collins. Van Argiano."

Dismay trickles coldly through Kai. His knuckles whiten on his coffee cup.

"The Agency tasked me with monitoring their correspondences," Chase says. "Collins and Argiano go way back. But what's horrifying—I mean, pants-shitting _horrifying_ —is how tight they are with that Chevalier. They're totally under his spell."

Lewis whistles. "One helluva smooth operator."

"Or a fucking psychopath. He doesn't give two shits about _Project Epsilon_. The only reason he's cooperating with IBM-UAWA is for manpower and resources."

"Resources for what?"

Chase drops his voice. "You've heard there's three Chiropteran Queens in Okinawa. Yeah?"

Lewis' head-tilt conveys bland curiosity. "Really?"

" _Really_. This Chevalier—Tórir, he calls himself—agreed to nab them as test subjects." Chase leans forward. "Do you remember a terrorist attack in Pakistan, two years ago? At a hospital? All the international outlets were yapping about it."

"Rings another bell."

"Yeah, well. It wasn't a terrorist attack. It was an armed assault by IBM-UAWA. The three Queens were passing through the region. Tórir tried to abduct one of them. He failed—but managed to get a dose of her blood."

"Blood?" Lewis frowns. "For what?"

"For the next phase of _Project Epsilon_." Chase looks queasy. "Tórir has sold the board on something more dangerous than supersoldiers. He wants to create… an army of Chiropteran Queens."

This time Lewis' disbelief is entirely genuine. "You're _serious_?"

"I'm dead serious." Chase blows out an edgy breath. "The worst part is, it makes total sense. The only thing stronger than a Chevalier is a Queen. Once awoken from hibernation, they're the ideal weapons. They can slaughter hundreds, then fall right back to sleep. Tórir plans to do that with the two younger Queens."

"What about the third?"

"Otonashi." Beads of sweat squeeze from Chase's pores. "He wants her as breeding stock. Her daughters will be bartered by governments as _pure-bloods_. Used for espionage, warfare, assassinations. Tórir will split the payments with IBM-UAWA. Stay well-fed and well-fucked for the rest of his days, while his army of Bitch-Queens assfucks us all."

The words pass through Kai in livid pulses. The coffee sours in his mouth.

In the periphery, Haji and the girls' conversation has stalled: desultory, dead-ended. Saya's napkin lays in shreds across her lap.

Lewis' affability, half-innate, half-cultivated, doesn't falter. "What about that rice farm? _Hikage Okome_. What's happening there?"

Chase dabs his forehead with a napkin. "What do you think? After the factory was razed, IBM-UAWA needed a new base of operations. That farm is on a strip of land leased to a private company. A secret outpost. The location is good smokescreen for other purposes."

"Purposes such as?"

Chase's gaze lowers. "That farm is a petri dish. It's where Tórir and IBM-UAWA are—"

On Kai's earpiece, V's voice says, "— _Trouble in your neck of the woods."_

Kai sips his coffee, and murmurs, "Hn?"

 _"Two guys heading for R-Café. Two more prowling the boardwalk. Bulky jackets on them. Good for concealed carry."_

A moment later, Sachi hums, _"I see them, too. Give me the word and they're done."_

Kai sets his cup down, "Not here. Too risky."

 _"Where then?"_

"Someplace less crowded."

 _"Understood. Leave now, or you'll walk right into them."_

Kai eases his M1911 Pistol from its bellyband and into his hand. Casually, he stands. His eyes meet Saya and Haji's. As always, the Chevalier is uncannily attuned to the danger. Saya, in contrast, is radioactive with it—pouring blood-red waves like a supernova.

"Lewis," she says.

The big man nods. "I heard."

Across him, Chase blanches. "What the hell's going on?"

Lewis flashes teeth in a semblance of smile. "Sorry, Jordan. Looks as if someone's been tailing you."

"Tailing me?!"

"Probably with the intent to kill you."

" _Kill me_?!"

Yumi sighs, "This'll go easier if you stop parroting every-fucking-thing he says."

Chase— _Jordan_ —jerks to his feet. "Who—who are you people?"

"We're the three Bitch-Queens." Yuri primly smooths out her dress. "And if you follow our lead, you might stay alive."

* * *

The busy streets are bathed in sunlight. The seawaves hold a mineral dazzle.

Even with his sunglasses on, Kai squints in the glare. Behind him, Yumi and Yuri traipse faux-casually with their shopping bags. The party has split up: Saya, Haji, Lewis and Chase going east, while he heads west with the twins. They plan to circle the shopping district, then converge near the Hilton's parking lot in a classic pincer.

V and Sachi, playing discreet lookouts, alert them to the movements of the four hostiles.

"Guys," Kai says into his earpiece. "What's the visual?"

" _Two took off after you,"_ V says. _"The other two are tailing Saya's group_. _I'm ghosting 'em."_

"Them and not me!" Yumi mock-pouts. "I shoulda known you had a thing for my Auntie!"

" _Sorry, baby_ ," V sighs. " _It's those runner's legs. She could squeeze a grapefruit between 'em."_

There is a burst of static. Haji's voice floats in at its flattest. _"—we can hear you."_

V chuckles uncomfortably. _"Meant it as a compliment, dude!"_

Sachi intrudes, " _I, umm, have a problem."_

 _"Jeez, Sachi! You too?"_

 _"Not that."_ Sachi's voice deepens the way it always does in crisis: a river of silty-dark water. _"The two hostiles tailing Yuri'nem. They've about-faced."_

Yuri frowns. "Where are they headed, Sachi?"

 _"East. After Saya's group."_

"Shit," Kai says.

 _"They're operating in a grid,"_ V realizes _. "There could be others closing in."_

Kai exhales, and says, "Saya. Haji. What do you wanna do? It's your call."

There is a silence. Then the softness of Saya's voice hardens into steel. _"Sachi. Can you drop the men who've just started following us?"_

 _"Can and will."_

 _"Please do."_

Through his earpiece, Kai hears the _rat-tat_ of two shots. In the distance, gunfire echoes across the boardwalk. There are screams. Civilians start running. Kai and his group pick up the pace, matching the frantic flow of bodies.

 _"Done,"_ says Sachi. _"What next?"_

 _"The others will use this emergency to either withdraw or attack,"_ says Saya. _"It's the latter I'm counting on."_

* * *

The gunshots drill through the silence like ice cracking. Adrenaline spreads in a web through Saya, coldness sluicing into her blood.

Just like in Karachi, she has violated Red Shield's prime directive. Sanctioned the killing of humans.

 _Don't think about that._

 _Focus on the threat._

Her hand is wrapped around Haji's. His fingers tighten on hers: half-reassurance, half-warning.

"Here they come," he says, low.

Saya nods.

Their group is nearly at the Hilton's three-story parking lot. Away from the bustle of the shopping district, the streets are sedate, sickles of sunlight arcing through the _sago_ palms. Saya and Haji walk ahead, hands clasped together. Lewis brings up the rearguard, a Colt cocked and half-concealed under his jacket sleeve. Between them, Jordan moves tensely, his eyes flitting across the periphery.

"Where are we going?" he hisses.

"Ssh," says Saya.

In a shadowed pocket of the lot, shapes converge. Four of them, if her senses prove correct. Two are crouched behind the grilled barrier of an adjacent construction site. Two more are hidden behind the wide concrete column that leads to the lot itself. They appear to be in urgent conversation. Maybe they've been alerted to the sniper attack on two of their teammates; maybe they've been warned on what kind of danger Saya, Haji and even Lewis represent by themselves.

Either way, their brief distraction is to Saya's benefit.

"Now," she says.

Lewis whips out his Colt, and grabs Jordan with the other hand. He dives with astonishing speed behind a parked minivan.

In the same blink, Saya and Haji move. Haji zooms left, for the two hostiles hidden near the construction site. Saya lunges right, a low-angled dropkick at the men behind the concrete column.

The two men, caught off-guard, bring their weapons up. One shouts, _"What the fuck—?"_ a heartbeat before Saya's leg arcs towards him, foot colliding against his skull. The blow is so vicious it cracks the orbital bone, nearly knocking his eye out of its socket. The man howls and slumps to the pavement, clearing Saya's path to his partner.

The man is better prepared. He fires off two shots at close range. A bullet sizzles past Saya's ear. Another slices a gash across her bare arm. Moving laterally, Saya closes in. A sharp elbow-strike dislodges the man's grip on his gun. It clatters across the pavement. In the same motion, she stomps on his instep while lunging forward, blitzing the man with a straight-on jab to the chest.

Ribs crack, puncturing lungs. Choking on a froth of blood, he drops.

Whirling, Saya shouts, "Haji!"

Her Chevalier signals across the street. Bright blood speckles his pale features. At his feet, the two hostiles sprawl in a glistening puddle, their throats torn.

Saya glances toward the minivan. "Lewis!"

"Doin' fine!"

He waves from his hiding spot. The other hand stays wrapped around Jordan's elbow. The other man has a palm pressed to his mouth. A retching gasp tears out of him.

" _Jesus_ ," he groans. "This is—"

Saya cuts him off. "These four were lying in wait. There are still two others tailing us." She lifts a hand to her earpiece. "V. Sachi. Do you see them?"

 _"They've split in different directions,"_ Sachi says. _"One's ducked indoors, to avoid sniper fire."_

 _"I've lost visual on the other,"_ V says _"He squirreled off near the harbor."_

"Find him. Before he calls reinforceme—"

Gunfire strafes in blazing rounds across the pavement. The roar of engines fills the air. Two motorcycles—the three-wheeler models popular in Okinawa—zip down the streets. Their riders are clad in dark helmets and bodysuits. As they close in on Saya's group, they bring their pistols up to bear.

There is no time to orient herself. Saya dives out of the way before the first motorcycle plows into her.

Bullets sizzle helter-skelter. The concrete shatters in pockmarks around her body. She flings herself sideways until she comes up hard against a dumpster, springboarding off its sloping edge, leaping through the air as the shock drains out and the brilliant clarity of instinct kicks in, her body weightless before she collides feet-first with the rider on the closest motorcycle.

Her feet connect with his helmet—a low-pitched _crack_ —then a chilling sensation of the hardness beneath the helmet giving way, the rider's skull dented by her momentum. The motorcycle angles sideways, sparks popping as carbon fiber kisses cement. Saya and the K.O'd rider go tumbling.

She rolls, straightens, then she is running, amped up on adrenaline. The second motorcycle cuts a wide arc across the street. Its rider zigzags back toward their group, spraying bullets that buzz like wasps trapped in tinfoil.

Lewis and Jorden crouch behind the minivan. Its surface erupts in dents, glass spraying inward. Lewis hunkers low, waits for a gap between the gunfire, then makes his own shot. It hits center mass. The rider lurches, the motorcycle careening crazily. Lewis aims, then hits again. A headshot, blood splattering the inside of rider's helmet visor.

The motorcycle crashes headlong into a wall. The rider slumps sideways, hitting the pavement. His gun clatters away.

In Saya's earpiece, Kai shouts, _"Saya! Haji! We're on our way to you!"_

Sachi says, " _My target's back outdoors. For the last time."_

A beat later, the report of Sachi's bullet goes off. In the distance, screams ring across the boardwalk. It won't be long before the place devolves into a stampede. The arrival of police is imminent.

Then V says, _"Fuck!"_

The curse is like a hook in Saya's ribs. "What is it?"

 _"My target. He's thirty feet across from you. Loading a weapon—FUCK!"_

A bullet chips the concrete five inches from Saya's foot, spraying shards everywhere. She jerks. Then Haji swoops across the distance, snatching her up so fast that the speed spurts tears from her eyes, a perceptible vapor trail glittering in her wake. Barely a nanosecond later, a barrage of gunfire shreds the spot where she stood.

She and Haji duck for cover beneath the awning of a closeby building. Their eyes scan the street in tandem, searching for the shooter.

 _There._

A man hidden behind a cluster of sago palms. The target V briefly lost sight of. He must have slipped in during the pandemonium with the motorcycles.

As Saya watches, he brings his revolver around. A bullet spins from its cylinder in the same instant Haji tosses one of his daggers. The two objects fly parallel, heading in opposite directions. The bullet sails past Saya and Haji's heads. But the dagger sinks, with brutal accuracy, into the gunman's throat.

The pressure of the impact sprays blood everywhere. The man jerks, dropping his gun. Both hands scrabble for his throat. Blood gushes rhythmically from the wound. Wheezing, he crumples.

Across the street, Lewis shouts, " _Shit_!"

Saya and Haji spin.

It takes Saya a moment to absorb what she is seeing: Lewis on his knees, splattered with blood. Oh God—was he hit?

 _No._

Jordan is slumped against the bullet-scarred minivan. His hands are clutched to his chest. Saya glimpses the blood spewing from the wound. It has already soaked through his shirt, spreading across the streetside. His eyes are heavy-lidded, dazed.

"Jordan!" Lewis shouts. "Jordan!"

Saya rushes over. Haji stays back, on guard for threats.

On her earpiece, Kai says, _"Saya? Lewis? What's happened?"_

Lewis doesn't answer. He is trying to stanch Jordan's wound.

"You'll be fine, man," he says. "Fine like cherry wine."

Jordan grimaces. "C'mon, Sammy. You used to… lie better'n that."

Saya swallows. Up close, Jordan's skin is bone-white. The rich hot soup of his blood spreads in dark sheets across the pavement.

"Jordan! Hold on!" Lewis says. "I'm calling an ambulance!"

"'S too late…" Jordan slurs. "…'M sorry."

"Sorry?"

"I knew… those guys were coming. It was a… set up."

"A set up?" Saya asks. "By who? IBM-UAWA?"

Jordan shakes his head. "Tórir."

" _What_?"

Jordan's smile sits limply on his face. "He knew… I was a spy. He threatened me. Threatened… my family."

"But why go to all this trouble?" Lewis demands. "Why call us out here?"

"It was… a distraction." Jordan's eyes cloud over. "Tórir's… gone after the poison."

Shock and understanding merge inside Saya, an inky darkening into horror.

"He _knows_ about the poison?"

Jordan nods. "He intercepted… Red Shield's messages. I'm sorry… I…"

Then his eyes slip shut, and the last breath jitters out of him. He goes still.

"Shit," Lewis says. " _Shit_."

In the distance, sirens echo and re-echo.

"We need to go," Haji says.

His calm voice is a rotation of nightmare into reality. Except the nightmare remains at the edges of Saya's mind, gathering dimension, massing into unadulterated horror.

 _Tórir's after the poison._

A slow-motion detonation into disaster.

* * *

2 Chome-1-9

Naha 901-0154

Okinawa Prefecture

Japan

The laboratory door clicks open and Julia jerks awake.

Her first thought is, _drat_ , _asleep on the job._ She'd drowsed off on her desk at the Naha outpost. The vial—retrieved from the serpent's belly—is in the test-tube rack. It was previously in containment at a secured base. It took the highest clearance to access it. Together, Julia and Ezra plan to conduct a full chemical composition analysis.

In the meantime, Julia is intrigued by the photographs of the victim, Akamine Haru. His akin is dappled with red cysts. Each one oozing a pus of toxins.

Aconite.

 _Wolfsbane._

A formidable substance. Its effects mimic cyanide. Ingestion causes the internal organs to seize, then slows down the breathing. Vomiting and diarrhea are common. So is muscular dysfunction. But she's never seen aconite leave such marks. Red as flayed meat, with hard-edged shards that resemble crystallization.

 _It's obviously a reaction unique to Chiropterans. The wolfsbane appears to be acting as a DNA reactive agent, crosslinking DNA strands and leading to cell death._

 _But can it be stopped? Or reversed?_

She'd dozed off performing a toxicological panel on a sample of Akamine's blood. Her dreams were a messy Rorschach blot—the type she always got when fixated on a new project, unable to tear herself away even for meals or mothering. _She's in Sherlock mode again,_ David used to joke to the children in their schooldays. _Better make do with my pancakes and tuna sandwiches._

 _A tuna sandwich would be nice,_ Julia thinks, sitting up and straightening her glasses.

She swivels in her chair—and freezes at the gun pointed at her.

"Step back," the heavyset man says. "Hands in the air."

Julia obeys, the disorientation of sleep burned out by adrenaline. "Who are you?"

"Shut up."

The armed man edges deeper into the lab. One hand remains on his weapon. The other goes to the microphone he's wearing. "All clear. Let him in."

 _Him?_

Julia knows better than to ask. Her mouth stays shut. But her mind works on double-time, cataloging the gunman, a snapshot already burnt into her hippocampus of height, build, accent, affiliations. He appears to be American, of military background, with a .45 semi-automatic handgun. His clothes and gear look expensive.

At the door, a second gunman arrives. Similar in appearance to the first. He does a quick sweep of the laboratory. At this hour, most of the staff are on their lunch breaks. Ezra isn't due until later today.

Julia had anticipated the solitude. Even welcomed it: a chance to analyze the toxin without interruption, a total concentration of mind and body that bordered on Zen-like.

 _Never zone out in an unsecured location,_ David always warns her.

"If your hands aren't up in the next second," the gunman says, "I'm putting you to sleep for good."

Julia realizes her left hand is sliding along the table, to the alarm button beneath the paneling. She exhales, then complies, raising her arms into a more innocent position. She'll have to find another way to alert Red Shield of the intruders at the outpost.

 _Maybe if there's a distraction…_

"Good afternoon, dear Julia."

She swivels.

An old man steps out through the door, a revolver held lazily in his hand.

He appears to be about eighty, with a thinning shock of white hair. Slate-gray eyes and a rigid posture give him the austere appearance of a polar ice-cap. But it's his expression that Julia recognizes. The inverted eyebrows and flared nostrils that telegraph a barely-concealed disgust. Like a man who has sniffed something foul and cannot determine the source of the odor.

Shock floods Julia's system. "Dr. Collins?"

Her ex-mentor stares impassively at her. "Time has certainly been kind to you, Julia. You're as lovely as ever."

He steps closer; Julia jerks back. She hasn't laid eyes on him since he'd tried to kill her, more than thirty years ago. When David had leapt in and saved her, long before their life together, or their three children, were even an inkling. The sight of him is intensely physical: a full-body panic that she tries and fails to minimize.

In that instant, all her years of training desert her. She is twenty-seven again, a reluctant replacement for Collins on Cinq Flèches' pedestal, his rage toward her bottomless, unhinged, horrifying.

For months afterward, she'd had dreams of that night. Dreams in which David didn't make his nick-of-time rescue, and Collins shot her, blood geysering from her chest. Or where David was shot, but didn't survive, his body an eerie sprawl, his skin sickly pale as if drained by a swarm of vampires. Worst were the dreams where _she_ shot David, regret splattering her skin like the stickiness of his blood.

A therapist she'd seen during her first pregnancy suggested these dreams were rooted in her betrayal of Red Shield, and her guilt afterwards. She'd accepted that. She'd moved past it.

Now, Collins levels the gun barrel at her skull. His expression—caught somewhere between flat and manic—replicates her worst nightmares.

"What—" she swallows, "—what do you want?"

She doesn't know why she asked. It is chillingly obvious. He'd vanished into the woodwork after the Cinq Flèches debacle. But that didn't mean he was in stasis. Someone else would surely exploit his raw ambition. Someone who didn't care about the permeable—and dangerous—line between genius and insanity.

Realization springs through Julia. "You're working for IBM-UAWA!"

Collins nods. "They've taken very good care of me."

"By letting you publish your research?"

" _Julia_." His expression, pedantically chiding, is a relapse to their simpler times in university. "The accolades of the ivory tower stopped mattering to me years ago."

"Even the Nobel Prize?"

His brows knit together in disdain. "I noticed you've not sought it out yourself."

"I'm a Shield. Our research is not for personal glory."

"Or, as I'm to understand, the benefit of humanity." He shakes his head. Julia watches his face change: that trick of shadow that transforms him from a dry-eyed academic into an aberrant species of sociopath. "Perhaps we're alike in that. My work isn't for humanity's benefit either."

"What then?"

Collins' smile makes her heart stutter sickly. "Oh, Julia. I'm astonished you'd even ask. Given that you've spent your entire life in service to _them_." He makes a noise like a laugh, except it doesn't leave his throat. "I remember you scolded me once. You said that unlike myself, the machinations of Chiropterans were pure. My dear, you were prescient as ever."

"What do you mean?"

Collins' lips purse in a playful _tsk_. "Haven't you noticed? Everything's gone to hell in a handbasket. Educational programs underfunded. Intellectualism at a standstill. Wars waged as privatized pissing contests. All testament to humanity's colossal idiocy. The purity of scientific endeavor has no place on such a stage. It's pearls before swine."

Julia's pulse beats rapidly in her throat. "What then? You're working to benefit Chiropterans now?"

" _A_ Chiropteran. One with a vision for the future. Where humanity is kept in line. Where the brilliant and blessed amongst us are chosen to exercise their talent to the fullest. No legal hangups. No moral dilemmas. Only… perfection. Endless and eternal." A smile slides dreamily across his face. "It's somewhat simpatico to my tastes."

"Your _tastes_?" Julia shakes her head. "My God. Is that how low you've sunk? To be bribed by offers of immortality?"

"More than that. _Purpose_." His eyes narrow. "I joined IBM-UAWA to unlock the secrets of the Chiropteran genome. Not for what it might accomplish. I wanted to learn about it for _itself_. You must know how that feels, Julia. The awe of discovering something beyond yourself. In knowing that even if you had eternity, you couldn't unravel its true nature."

Julia steels her jaw. "It never tempted me to abandon my humanity."

"Unfortunate," Collins sighs. "For _you_. Chiropterans are the closest there is to Intelligent Design. If they choose to, they can take the world by siege. They can change its face completely."

A burst of fury explodes in Julia's chest. "You make them sound like a virus. But I've known Chiropterans far longer that you have. They're individuals, just like us. Their only purview is surviving."

"Oh _please_." Collins' scorn is unconcealed. "You mean Saya and her nieces? Brainwashed failures. All of them. I speak of a _true_ Chiropteran. One who recognizes his full potential, and has no qualms about using it. To crush fickle humanity and unstable Queens alike."

"You're _insane_ ," Julia pronounces, a cold silence settling into her bones.

Collins smiles. "You were always too emotive. Your prerogative as a female, alas. Truthfully: I pity you. This is too massive for even your comprehension."

"But not yours?"

"Remember the Greek Scholia, my dear. Prometheus did not flinch from stealing fire."

Julia shakes her head. "That's where you and I differ, Dr. Collins. I don't see you as a modern-day Prometheus. In fact, the more I got to know you, the more you reminded me of Shelley's _Frankenstein_. A coward whose lust for knowledge brought horror upon the world."

The skin around Collins' eyes tightens. But his smile stays in place. "All change horrifies at the outset. It's why we cry after birth."

"This isn't birth. This is a guarantor of disaster."

"Oh ye of little faith." Collins extends his gun. "I'm here to collect a vial, Julia."

"Vial?"

"Please don't be coy. IBM-UAWA intercepted Red Shield's correspondence. You're harboring a poison that could potentially wipe out Chiropterans. My employer cannot allow that."

"I don't know what you—"

Collins' face twitches with suppressed anger. He snaps his fingers at the second gunman. The man nods, then darts out of the lab. Moments later, he returns, dragging in a young man. There is blood across his skull, drying to a shiny glaze; his labcoat is splattered with it. Both hands are cuffed behind his back; one shoulder is wrenched at odd angle, suggesting a dislocation.

Julia's body goes perfectly still, the way a clock ceases ticking.

"Ezra…"

"Mom." Her son's exhales bubble with blood. A broken nose, she realizes. "I'm sorry. I came in—early."

"No doubt to examine that special vial," Collins says. "They're so _enthusiastic_ at that age. I remember you were the same. Or perhaps it's David he takes after?"

The shock of seeing her son in proximity to danger has whited out Julia's mind. It's an effort to bring her senses back to a semblance of calm.

"Dr. Collins," she says. " _Please_. Let him go."

"If you hand the toxin over."

"I told you. I don't know anything about—"

"Spare me." Collins turns to Ezra. "Your son is dedicated to his work. But terrible at protecting his data. We've intercepted many of his correspondences with Saya over the months. About her pregnancy. About the movements of your group in Paris. About your mission in Taipei. About the current meet-up at Chatan." He feigns a pitying smile. "Poor boy's got a bit of a crush. Always checking to make sure _Otonashi-san_ is doing fine."

Ezra's face beneath the blood is twisted with shame. "I'm sorry, Mom. I—"

" _Tch_ ," Collins cuts in. "It's your own fault. Every organization is brought down by its weakest link. I'm doing Red Shield a favor by eliminating it."

Julia's terror inverts into a vibrating rage. "If you hurt my son—"

"Hurt. _Please_." Collin's gaze flattens to iron-ore. "I'll kill him."

Julia starts forward. " _Don't you dare_ —"

Collins glances at the gunman. "Go ahead."

The gunman steps forward, his demeanor casual. He takes aim and fires. The .45 is silenced; the bullet erupts in a puff.

Blood spurts from Ezra's thigh. He _screams_.

" _Ezra_!"

Julia rushes toward her son. The second gunman snatches a fistful of her hair, yanking her back.

Ezra sags in his captor's grasp. His skin is terrifyingly pale; his pantleg is sodden with blood. More blood seeps across the floor, a widening puddle.

"Please, Julia," Collins says, almost bored. "That was a warning shot. The next one won't be."

"Mom." Ezra's voice is a reedy croak. "Don't—do it. _Please_."

Julia's heart stalls. Every iota of instinct screams to protect her son. If she hands the vial over, there is no guarantee they'll be spared. David has always warned her that in hostage situations, everyone is unofficially slated for death. _Never trust your own murderers._

Yet the words exit her mouth in a brittle rasp.

"The table."

Collins raises a brow.

"It's on the table." Julia swallows. "In the test-tube rack."

" _Mom, no_!"

Collins approaches the table. Spotting the vial, he plucks it out matter-of-factly. "Is this it?"

Julia nods.

"Thank you, my dear. As always, you're most helpful."

Collins stows the vial away, then nods at the gunman holding Ezra. "Go ahead."

The gunman shoves Ezra to the floor. He sprawls there, waxen and bloodsplattered, his breaths slurring past his lips. The gunman extends his .45.

Julia's eyes widen. "No—"

The bullet shears through Ezra's coat and into the mass of his chest. Ezra jerks. Julia feels the impact as if through her own body.

Screaming, she wrenches out of her captor's hold. He hauls her back and pistol-whips her so hard that everything blinks out. Darkness pours into Julia's skull, a darkness broken by a flash of color as she hits the linoleum tiles, the world flickering, then fading out.

When she can see again, Collins and the gunmen are gone. There is a seeping gash on Julia's head, a hot buzz in her skull.

"Ezra!"

One hand clapped over her head-wound, blood trickling through her trembling fingers, she crawls towards Ezra.

Her son is motionless. But a thin river of pulse flows beneath her searching fingertips.

Julia scrambles for the phone.

* * *

 _Expect next chapter to be a somber (smutty) breather before the plot careens into overdrive in the final few chapters. Because this fic is already packed to the gills with porn, so why not deliver one last hurrah? :)_

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Review, prettiest of please!_


	41. Pledge

_Happy Tuesday, everyone! :)_

 _I'm posting this chapter early, as my week promises to be a busy one. Picking up directly after the fall-out in the last chapter, with Srs Convos (and smut!) being shared between our heroes._

 _CW: For menstrual blood, and blood-play in general. If that's one of your particular squicks, but you still want to keep up with the plot, you can stop reading after the line, "They sink together into the water, as if into a warm blanket."_

 _Hope y'all enjoy! Also: real talk. I'm curious to know which smut scene was your favorite, since writing sex scenes is one of those areas where improvement through feedback is always a plus. (Kinda like sex itself, tbh... :D)_

 _Review, pretty please!_

* * *

Itokazu Hospital

1 Chome-28-1 Tomari

Naha-shi

Kai finds Dee in the waiting room.

The hospital is the same one where Adam was admitted. The white-walled corridors are bare, the scents at once antiseptic and stuffy. Dee stands in a red cone of light near the emergency exit. Her face is broken into misshapen squares by the mesh-window at the door. No tears, but her eyes are bleary.

"Dee!"

She rouses at the sight of him. "…You okay?"

"Am _I_ okay?" Kai catches her by the shoulders. "I should be asking you! What the hell happened?"

He'd gotten her message fifty minutes ago. Per the plan, he, Lewis, the twins, their Chevaliers, Saya and Haji had exited Chatan. There were police everywhere; Jordan's body, along with the corpses of their attackers, had been impounded. The newsfeed was full of reports of terrorism. Witness accounts at the boardwalk were fragmented, but it was better to play it safe. The group had split up to avoid detection, agreeing to convene later at Omoro. The twins and their Chevaliers had taken off on foot, and Saya and Haji had ghosted off across the rooftops, leaving Lewis to catch a taxi while Kai hightailed it on his motorcycle.

Halfway, Kai got a message from Dee. An address, followed by a set of symbols. _'X'. '**'. '#'. '^^^'._

It was a warning that something had happened. Something terrible. He'd set a land-speed record racing to the hospital. The rest of the family were already on their way.

"It's Mom and Ezra," Dee says. "They were held hostage at the Naha lab. An old Red Shield agent—Collins?—showed up to take the vial. Things got ugly."

"Are they okay?"

She bites her lip. "Mom has a mild concussion. But Ezra's in bad shape. He was shot twice. A bullet to the thigh, and a punctured lung. They're having trouble stabilizing him."

Kai's fingers tighten on Dee's shoulders. " _Shit_."

"Dad's inside with Mom. The old man's being stoic, but he's pretty shaken up." She exhales, in that familiar jittery way that signals she's trying not to buckle under the strain herself. "What about you? I heard the op in Chatan went tits-up."

Kai's jaw clenches. "The Chevalier launched an attack. A ten-man hit-team. Lewis' contact was killed in the crossfire."

"Any casualties at our end?"

"Everyone's safe. They're on their way here." Gentler, "How're you holding up?"

Her lips press together, chin dimpling. " _Fine_."

"Uh-huh."

"I _was._ Until—"

"What?"

She glares at his hands on her shoulders. Kai lifts them away, holding them up as if at gunpoint.

" _Well_ ," he drawls, "I could offer one of my famous bearhugs. But you might respond with one of your more famous right-hooks."

That earns him a right-hook anyway. He catches it, a battlefield reflex. "Still too slow."

Dee scowls, a smile hidden on the inside. "You're not helping."

"How about now?"

He draws her closer to kiss her, softly, on the lips. Dee shivers out a sigh.

"Nope," she whispers. "Not helping at all."

Then her arms pass around him, squeezing tight. He feels the tension inside her relax a notch.

Quieter, she asks, "How'd this happen? First the firefight at Chatan, then the mess at the lab. It can't be a coincidence."

"It's not."

"Huh?"

Kai's eyes narrow. "Lewis' contact. He said the firefight was a diversion. He was there to lure us away, so the enemy went after the toxin."

Dee processes this with alarm. "How'd they know it was at the lab?"

"They tracked Ezra's communications."

Julia emerges at the doorway. She is gray-faced and disheveled, a pinkened swathe of gauze at her forehead. David is beside her, carefully cupping her elbow. His features, tightly-controlled, are nonetheless livid. Kai can't remember the last time he's seen the old man in such an icy paroxysm of rage.

But he understands. It isn't just the senseless attack on his wife and son. It's the teeth-grinding fury of not having been there to rescue them. As of yet, the fury is hidden. But Kai recognizes that it will keep dripping through David's veins until the full extent unleashes itself.

Kai pities Collins—or anyone else at the business-end of David's gun—when it happens.

"Mom!" Dee steps forward. "Why're you out of bed? The doctors said—"

Julia shakes her head. "I need to see Saya."

"Saya?"

"Ezra was… corresponding with her via an unsecured line." She sighs. "I don't think he meant any harm. But his messages let IBM-UAWA track our movements. It's how they learnt of the vial—and where it was being kept."

Dee facepalms. "That _bonehead_."

"Deidra, please—"

"Well, QED!" Her eyes flash, not with anger but dismay. "Thanks to his dumb ass, IBM-UAWA have a toxin that could _kill_ Otonashi and the twins!"

"Unless we strike first."

The four of them spin around.

Saya and Haji have arrived, tailed by Lewis, the twins, and their Chevaliers. Saya has her phone out. She holds it at an arm's length, as if it is radioactive.

"I received a message," she says. "After the attack in Chatan."

"A message?" Kai asks. "From who?"

"The number's private," Lewis says. "I ran a trace. The closest we could figure out was someplace near Uruma."

"Near Yabuchi Island." A strand of hair has fallen between Saya's eyes, which darken as if with stormclouds. "It's where the victim, Akamine Haru, was found."

David considers this. "You think the message is from a representative of IBM-UAWA?"

Saya passes her phone to David. "Or from Tórir himself."

David squints at the screen. His expression goes from wary to deeply bewildered.

"What is it?" Kai asks.

" _I want a trouble-maker for a lover,"_ David reads. " _Blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame, who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate, who burns like fire on the rushing sea_. Below is a postscript that says: _There need be no blood spilled if you do not fight your fate. Come see me at our little trove of monsters. Come alone."_

Kai frowns. "That's hella creepy."

David hands Saya back her phone. "What makes you so sure it's that Chevalier?"

Saya toys with her engagement ring. The peridot glitters redly in the hospital lights. "The poem. It's by Rumi. Tórir—he recited it to me, the last time we met."

Yumi cocks an eyebrow. "He recited _poetry_ to you?"

"No wonder she wants to kill him," V mutters.

David doesn't share the humor. "What does he mean by 'Our little trove of monsters'? Where is that?"

Saya shakes her head. "I'm not sure. Maybe Yabuchi Island. If I go there—"

"No way in hell!" Dee cuts in. "I'm contacting August. We need troops brought in. Whatever's happening at Yabuchi needs to be shut down. _Pronto_."

"Jordan called it a petri dish," Lewis recalls. "There's obviously experiments happening there."

David's brow furrows. "Debrief me on everything your contact told you." To Saya: "I agree with Dee. We need manpower. With the toxin in Tórir's hands, you and the twins should have someone watching you round the clock. "

Yumi wrinkles her nose. "You mean, like, bodyguards?"

"You're aware of the toxin's effects," David says. "Neither yourselves nor your Chevaliers would be a match for it."

Yuri lays a palm across her belly, a nervous impulse. "So, what? We're retreating?"

"Until we have a suitable plan."

Kai expects Saya to argue. Instead, she nods. Her face bears a strange, disconnected expression. Her fingers keep twisting around her engagement ring, a self-protective gesture that mimics the way Yuri touches her baby-bump.

"Yo, Saya," Kai prods. "You good?"

She blinks, and the blankness fades from her eyes.

"Yeah," she says. "I'm fine."

Kai doesn't buy it. Nor, he can tell, does Haji.

The Chevalier regards Saya circumspectly: the bone-tired slump of her shoulders, the big eyes full of shadows. She reminds Kai of someone feeling her way around in the dark, with a headful of sharp-edged plans. He wants to ask what's up. But he has Yumi and Yuri to worry about, and Dee. His hands are—literally and metaphorically—full.

Then Haji says, in the quiet voice of foresight, "Even with the troops, we should stay vigilant. Tórir may have infiltrated Red Shield in other ways."

Lewis nods grimly, "If they've breached Ezra's data, they could use it as a breadcrumb trail to access our main servers."

"I'll talk to August," David says. "HQ should multilayer their security—on and offline."

"I'll get the soldiers ready." Dee squares her shoulders, distress burying itself beneath layers of operational resolve. "We should start placing security at the right outposts."

"I'll stay here with Julia and Ezra," Kai offers. "Keep watch in case there's any trouble."

Dee half-smiles, and a glint of something—shock? gratitude?—passes David's eyes. Then he nods curtly and glances away. Since Kai and Dee announced their relationship, interactions are no longer at a point of outright hostility between him and the old man. But this is the first time in months that David has looked Kai straight in the eye without wavering.

"Thank you," he mutters, and it both is and isn't the right response for the moment. Kai understands.

Beside him, the twins exchange meaningful glances of their own, and nod.

"We'll lie low too, I guess." Yumi twines her arm with Yuri's. "It's for the best. This lady's ready to pop any day now."

Yuri doesn't quite smile, but her eyes are darkly-blue and reflective. She cradles her belly with a quiet sense of urgency. Kai wonders what effect the toxin might have on her children—and tries to unthink it. Something savage constricts inside him, a long-held impulse fighting to break free.

 _I've lost Dad and Riku._

 _I can't lose Yumi and Yuri._

Saya's gaze is on the twins too. It slews over Yuri's belly, dark in rings of red. Her expression hardens, an echo of Kai's own pledge.

Then Julia murmurs, "Oh."

The others swivel to stare at her.

"What's wrong?" David asks.

"I-I just—"

David maneuvers Julia toward the rooms. "You should lie back down."

"It's not that." Her eyes dart to Saya. "The toxin. Collins didn't take all of it."

Saya stares. "What do you mean?"

"I'd halved the vial's contents, before he arrived. Ezra and I were planning to do a full analysis."

Yumi and Yuri exchange glances. "So there's still some leftovers?" Yumi asks.

Julia manages a wavering nod. "Enough to figure out how it works. Or find an antidote."

"Not just that," says Saya.

Her voice cuts through the space, an edge of raw steel. Before, her face had been strange, but now it is a stranger's. The same features that otherwise hold such irresistible innocence belong to someone much older. Someone with hands drenched in blood.

"Keep an iota in reserve," she tells Julia. "Give the rest to me."

Kai frowns. "For what?"

"For its original purpose." Her eyes darken. "To kill Tórir."

* * *

Naminoue Beach

1-25-11 Wakasa

Naha, Okinawa Prefecture

900-0037

At the villa, Saya fetches herself a blood bag. Places it in a mug, not bothering with the IV drip, and lets it heat in the microwave. Once it is done, she carries her drink to the bay window. Looks out at the glittering sweep of the sea, letting the waves crash against her eardrums, wash away the tension in her chest. The heat of the blood she sips is invigorating.

In the war, everything was such a struggle. It knotted itself deep inside her, becoming part of who she was.

She can still feel it inside. Worry for the twins, for Kai, for Haji, for Ezra, for everyone touched by her orbit. But beneath that is a different energy.

Not bottled-up, but rising.

In the bathroom, she undresses. A thumbprint of red stains her panties. She rinses them in the sink. Her yearly bleeding— _estrus_ , as Julia calls it—is untroubling. She'd dealt with it during the war, too. The cramps and headaches never slowed her down.

Yet she wonders, as the water runs, why the sight of it feels like a crime-scene.

Downstairs, the alarm signal beeps. She senses Haji come in before she hears him—that familiar thrum of sweetness down her spine. Stares down at the draining water, pink with blood, and thinks:

 _Oh_.

The temptation is small. But the fact that it blossoms at all is troubling.

 _"Use the føða vial._ " Nathan's suggestion twists, foxlike, inside her. " _Now is the only time."_

On reflex, Saya goes to the medicine cabinet. The vial sits alongside a bottle of aspirin, as if it is just as commonplace a cure. She lifts it out. The lights strike the liquid inside, a shimmery violet haze.

 _Use it._

 _Unless you prefer that viper's spawn in your belly._

Saya grits her teeth.

Damn Nathan for planting ideas in her head—or, if she admits the awful reality, merely loosening them. Before this, she and Haji had anticipated their second chance at children with joy. Now it's too crazy to even consider. Daughters—even if they delay her Long Sleep—are the last things she needs.

Too much is brewing at the horizon.

In the mirror, her eyes narrow. Resolve feeds motion: she fetches out a pair of scissors. They glint dully in her hands, sparking a long-ago memory. The Zoo, after the Bordeaux Sunday, where she had resolved with ferocity to be the opposite of Diva. To snatch at the unspooling control in her life, and all but embody it herself.

Then, as now, her hair hangs shiny around her shoulders, a crowning glory, a frivolous vanity. During the war, Saya had stopped aspiring to beauty. Why should it be any different now?

And yet, working her hair into a braid, there is a pang. Sense-memory of Haji's cool fingers buried in her hair, tangling and untangling.

 _"Spoil your best feature?"_ He kisses the locks wrapped in his palm. " _I would not dare."_

But she will.

Hair grows back. If they survive this latest disaster... when they do... there will be nothing to spoil their future happiness.

Grabbing the braid, she yanks it forward, like a serpent she has to decapitate or else be poisoned by. The scissors flicker brightly in the mirror. _Snip. Snip. Snip_. The sound is crisp and satisfying, wisps of hair fluttering in the sink. She looks inside herself for the faintest trace of doubt, but instead finds something darker.

A gust of farewell.

The braid drops heavily into the wastebin. Her fingers trace the chopped-off hair at the nape of her neck. A few tufts are prickly against her palm, others a silky whisper as they curl around her fingers.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror. Greeting her isn't the old Saya, the fighter, but someone else. Someone resurfacing not like the dead and buried, but an animal stirred from winter sleep. A creature built for wild living, creeping in silence, melting in darkness.

Forever at war.

A knock on the door startles her.

"Saya?" Haji's voice is calm. But she hears the wariness in it, because she knows what to listen for. "Are you all right?"

"Y-Yeah. Hold on."

She tosses her underwear in the laundry basket— _out, damned spot!_ The vial sits awkwardly on the counter. Saya starts to return it to the cabinet, then wavers.

 _My only chance._

The seal uncorks with a plosive _pop_ , like champagne. She gulps it down like something quite the opposite. It is cool and bitter-tasting, tingling as it passes her tongue. Dragging on a robe, she takes a breath before letting Haji in.

Her Chevalier doesn't regard her changed appearance with a frown. That isn't his way. But he doesn't say anything for a long moment, and she feels his thoughts ticking over.

There is an edge of déjà vu there, too. The day at the Zoo, when he'd walked in on her, surrounded by the dark mess of lopped-off hair, her eyes glinting feverishly. _I'm not Diva. I never want to be Diva._

This isn't like that, Saya knows. It's more about reminding herself: _I'm not Diva._

 _But I have to stop denying that I'm Saya._

Quietly, Haji says, "Was it a bother?"

He means her hair. Yet the words carry a complex structure, seeded with a hundred different meanings.

Lip bit, Saya nods. Haji's gaze skims her slowly, not missing a single nuance, the way it has never missed a single deflection or white-lie in her life, from the jittery-edged _I'm fines_ , to the plate of noodles left unfinished at dinner, to the tiny indrawn gasp at an old wound, to the furtive tears she sheds in the shower.

He seems, not distressed, but somber as he marks the moment. Saya is not relapsing. She has simply stopped trying to be anyone else.

Without meeting his eyes, she says, "You don't like it?"

"I did not say that."

"You didn't have to. I know you've always liked me better with long hair."

"Saya. I would like you perfectly fine with none."

This makes her smile. "I'm not going that far. I just..."

"It is your choice, Saya. You need not justify it."

From anyone else, it would be a perfunctory remark. From Haji, it is a statement of fact.

Quietly, he plucks the scissors in her fingers. Guides her back to the mirror, where she stares again at her reflection, while Haji smooths out the uneven ends at her nape with a slow and deliberate care. She listens to the muted clicks of the scissors. Feels the cool pads of his fingers at her nape and around her ears.

Her Chevalier doesn't look at her. He is focused on the task at hand. The picture of his face, in its own frame of dark hair, seems at once insouciant and classic. Dark straight eyebrows in a smooth high forehead. Dark stubs of lashes on lowered eyes. All the smoky romanticism of a William Bouguereau painting, blended with the decadent splendor of a line-webbed Mughal artwork.

And when he tilts his head five degrees to the right, he becomes beautiful in the kind of way Saya recognizes the sea is beautiful, and the stars, and snowfall in the twilight.

Full of secrets she wants to know the names of.

"Done."

The _clink_ of scissors on the porcelain sink shakes off her reverie.

She lifts a hand to trace the topography of her skull. The frayed ends of her hair are smoothed out, with a precision that only Haji seems capable of.

Shyly, she meets his eyes in the mirror. "Thank you."

He nods, almost formal. But the way he bows his head to kiss the back of her neck, just where the border of skin meets fine down, is anything but.

Shivering, Saya lets her eyes drift shut. Lets herself melt against him, his body a cool substantial loom of fabric and shadow. God—why hadn't she seen, back then, how simple it could be? Keeping herself apart, through self-denial, and fear, and vengeance, and finally pure perversity from—from just _this_.

From letting him hold her. Letting him love her.

Love is what kept her strong in the war. Helped her survive it.

She'd realized that so late, and nearly lost him.

 _Never again._

Without opening her eyes, she whispers, "Haji?"

"Hm?"

"Whatever happens later... I want you to know how grateful I am to you."

"Grateful?"

"I know I don't say it often. But I appreciate strong you've kept me. How safe."

"I plan to keep you safe yet awhile, Saya." It isn't _Don't talk that way_ , but close. His arms pass around her. "For now, it's better if you rest."

"I don't think resting is on tonight's brochure."

"We can train, if you wish."

"Later."

"What would you prefer, then?"

Her eyes flutter open. She half-turns to regard him. His arms are still clasped around her, his eyes wistful, waiting, wondering. And she wishes she could give him something worthwhile to clutch at in the inevitable disaster that will follow.

Bashfully, she tugs his arm. "I want to take a bath. Come join me."

He nods, his face smoothed of expression, except for the pale fingers threading tightly through hers. Like her, she senses there is so much he wants to say, words a banked pressure in his chest, a gathering darkness in his eyes. But like her, he is too accustomed to silence, and to keeping the heart of himself hidden.

But, unlike her, he has a gift for saying it a different way.

With the cool curl of his fingers at her jaw, and the cool touch of his lips on hers. The kiss makes a familiar dizziness pluck at the edges of her consciousness. Clutching at fistfuls of his shirt, she goes up on tiptoe, and her mouth opens with a sighing tremor against his.

In ordinary circumstances, on her period, lovemaking would be out of the question.

Tonight's circumstances are far from ordinary.

The bathroom is designed in the typical Japanese style, the _ofuroba_ separate from the sink and toilet. It is tiled in black onyx, in contrast to the dazzling white marble outside. The wide stone tub, lined in fragrant cedar, is meant for soaking, not bathing. There is a frosted-glass shower space alongside it, to wash up before getting into the tub—something Saya knows Haji appreciates. At the Zoo, he'd always told her that he didn't understand the appeal of soaking in tubs. It was like a soup of your own grime.

The tiles are cool beneath Saya's bare feet. But Haji's mouth, questing hers for kisses, burns like a hot sip of _glögg_. It is an effort to disentangle themselves and undress. A greater effort still, not to succumb to the temptations of bare skin before the steaming water.

Saya turns the showerhead on. The spray is first cold as a slap, then deliciously hot. For a moment, she stays there, luxuriating in the hot needles of water, the way they warm Haji's skin to the same temperature as hers. In the dark tiles and steamy air, their paired bodies are milk and honey—his skin so flawlessly pale it glows, tinged in pink only at the dip of the throat and the head of the penis, hers tawny and golden and striped in tan-lines across the arms and breasts and hips and thighs.

Haji reaches for the charcoal soap. Saya beats him to it.

"Let me," she breathes, an implicit bidding to take control. Take their time, while it is still theirs to take.

Her hands tremble as she lathers herself up, then rinses off. It is hard to ignore the possessive way Haji watches her. In the clouded air, his eyes glow like blue chips of phosphorus. But his hands remain at his sides—patient, quiescent.

Once it is his turn, he lets her touch him everywhere with soapy hands. Up his throat and around his ears. Along the pebbles of his spine, the wings of his shoulderblades, the slope of chest, then down to his thighs and feet. He even lets her, with hitching breaths, stroke him between the thighs, along that soft stripe of skin between his most vulnerable regions. Runnels of foam flow everywhere, swept away by the water.

She doesn't settle her attention where she knows he wants it most. A pity. He is curved so pale and achingly lovely up towards his belly. Proof of her power over his body, and over the circuitous river of his blood.

Yet it is more thrilling about to ghost her fingertips over him. Down and up and away. To drag him closer by the neck and take his ragged gasp into her mouth.

"Saya." He sounds so keyed up, ready to pop like a soap bubble. "Please do not tease me."

"And if I want to?"

"That would be cruel. But—"

"But what?"

The look in his eyes makes her shiver. "If that is your wish, I will not stop you."

She drops her gaze, embarrassed by her own flushing gratitude, and the way his obedience always licks at her imperious streak.

"I don't want to be cruel." Gently, she coaxes him to settle on the wooden bath stool. Puts her fingers in his damp hair, drawing it back from his face, a caress in the guise of soaking it under the spray. "I have been cruel to you. It wasn't on purpose, but that doesn't excuse it. I'm trying to do better."

"Saya—"

"Ssh. Stay still."

She kneels before him. Drops a kiss to his brow, warm and soft in the dripping water. With his wet hair plastered to his scalp, droplets clustered in his eyelashes, he looks so young. Nearly as young as when he'd first arrived at the Zoo—a child snatched away from his family, then thrust into a strange place where he was treated less as a person than merchandise.

She remembers the first and only time she had seen him cry. How she'd wondered, cradling him in her arms, what sort of life he must've led, to learn to bite back tears, to suffer without sound. How she'd promised, in her own fickle and foolish way, to make everything all right.

Instead, she'd drank his youth, his time, his freedom, like the vampire she was.

Her eyes burn. She blinks hard, and cups his face. Kisses him. Once, again, and says, "I meant what I said. That I'm grateful to you. You've been everything a person can be for someone else. My family. My friend. In the war, you were my touchstone as much as my sword. I can't imagine being with anyone else."

"Saya—"

"Sssh."

She can't focus anywhere except his eyes. So blue, so perfectly alive and untouched by the filth of their past. Gently, she kisses them shut. Feels the orbs beneath the cool eyelids, the flutter of lashes across her lips.

Quietly: "I'll tell you a secret. I hate the color blue. I always have—unless it's on you. Then it's the only color worth looking at." He tries to speak, but she stops his mouth with hers. Kisses him, and bites at the softness of his lower lip. Whispers, "I love your mouth. I love when it speaks to me. I love when it doesn't. I love that you know when I need a quiet word. And when I need to hear nothing at all."

Haji swallows with a click of Adam's apple. She isn't sure if it's from what she's saying, or the way her widespread hands travel down his body.

Her mouth takes its own path. Kissing his lips, the whorls of his ears, before nuzzling where his jaw melts into neck. She gnaws at the vein there, pale blue as a dying streak of electricity, and as hot. He lets off a shaky gasp.

"I love how I can touch you in places you'd snap anyone else's neck for trying to." She exhales a giggle. "It makes me feel like the rabbit on the moon. Being so close to what everyone else thinks is unreachable."

Her lips trace the curve of his throat, the tempting bowl above the collarbone. She bites there, too, and is rewarded with a harsher sound—not a gasp but a growling sibilation. When she draws back, his eyes are on her, a focus at once predatory and tender.

Shivering, she drops her gaze. Takes his Chiropteran claw in hers. She kisses the rough-scaled palm. Laps helplessly at the fingers, each one sharp as a broken edge of bone. A tremor passes through Haji; he tries to tug the hand away. She holds on fast, and goes on with her small caresses.

"I love this hand as much as your scars," she says. "It reminds me how terrible I can be. How my mistakes can't be undone. But it reminds me of other things too. How forgiving you are. How loyal." She kisses the row of knuckles, dark as bullets. "I never apologized for what I did to you in Vietnam, did I?"

The cool fingers of Haji's human hand touch her chin, tipping her head up. His expression is haunted with shared memory. "You were not yourself that night, Saya. As far as I am concerned, that absolves you of blame."

Her throat aches, tears boiling hotly. She wipes at them with the heel of her hand. The other threads with Haji's claw, palm molding itself to the rake of bones.

"I-I want to believe you. But believing it won't make up for those who are gone."

"Nor will tormenting yourself with the reminders."

" _Please_. Let's not talk about that."

He hesitates, then nods. Draws her in to kiss her, raining dark hair around her burning face. She tries to keep it slow. But he gorges on her mouth hungrily, until desire pulses hot and sweet down her body. She can feel the energy racing beneath his skin, intense yet intensely controlled. Knows he is holding back for her, letting her take the lead because it is what she needs tonight. Because being compelled to give instead of receive steadies her the way ballast does a sailboat. Makes her sane, sure, stable.

It wouldn't be possible, she thinks, with anyone but Haji. Who else would have the quiet strength to let her be strong?

Breaking off, she presses her lips to his clavicle. Whispers, "Have I told you how wonderful you are?"

"Not that I recall."

She smiles into his skin. "Well. You are. I love your constancy. Your honesty. You're still one of the few people who can look me in the eye and tell me what I'm doing wrong, not what I need to hear. I don't... always appreciate that. But I respect it."

She splays her palms along his wide shoulders. Smooths them down his back, along his flanks to his ribs. Her lips follow, planting open-mouthed kisses. The measured cadence of Haji's inhale-exhale doesn't change. But his breathing deepens as her touches wander lower. She nuzzles at his sternum like a kitten, basking in the warmth. Bites at the laddered ribcage, where the lats flare like a cobra's hood.

He has always been thin. The body of a rockstar or an ascetic, depending on his diet. But never a twig. She can feel muscles throbbing everywhere, the strands as tight-woven as wicker.

"I love your body," she murmurs. "I love how you're so hard and sharp all over. But when I touch you, you go all melty like ice cream in a bowl. You always know when to be gentle with me. And when not to. Some nights, I can't decide which side of you I like best." A blush clings to her moistened cheeks. "I love the way you look at me when we're alone together. The way you touch me like I'm the sharpest sword you've ever handled. But also the juiciest fruit you can't wait to sink your teeth into. You think I don't notice. I do."

With both thumbs, she traces the jut of his hipbones. Darts her tongue, playfully, down the groove of his stomach. Haji's breath catches on a short, desperate noise. His eyes are half-lidded and darkly intrigued.

Waiting for her next move. _Begging_ for it, whatever it might be.

She blushes fiercer, the heat overlaying the shower steam. From this angle, there is no avoiding the way the wet crown of his erection slides along her jaw, tickled by her short dripping hair.

She's had more than enough time to acquaint herself with that part of him. Yet curiosity always tugs at her, the pale curvature of him stirring phantom sensations. How it feels when he buries himself inside her with jittery gasps and that wild burn in his eyes. How he transforms her body into uncharted territory, dragging her to a place at the edge of everything, yet so shudderingly, agonizingly _close_.

She wants to return the favor.

"I love the way you never hide how much you want me." She giggles. "Such a gentleman, really. Always standing up whenever I'm in the room." Her hand traces down the hard slope of his abdomen. Haji twitches; an anxious elation. "I love your eyes on me, and your hands. I love how you wear your clothes like a second skin, so it feels almost... impertinent to undress you. Until you take them off, and then you're like something Frederic Leighton would sculpt and stretch out."

" _The Sluggard?_ " he asks dryly.

"I was thinking more of _'An Athlete Wrestling with a Python_.' "

"I do not remember that one. _Oh_ —"

Her fingers curl around him. She gives a light squeeze. Haji sucks in a breath, hard, his body jerking before he can stop himself.

"Saya—"

"Ssh. Don't distract me."

Her chiding voice belies the tremor of her fingers. He radiates such glowing warmth against her palm. Fills her small hands to overflowing.

"Is this—" she licks her lips, dry despite the pattering water, "Is this good?"

Haji nuzzles her hair. "Good enough—to kill me."

"Ssh. Don't talk like that."

Her hands wander up and down the length of him. Not an exploration, but an acquisition. The rasp of his breathing tells her what to do. Working him with one hand, she slides the other hand down to grip the base. Squeezes until he growls.

" _Saya_ —"

Heat surges through her, electric. She never gets tired of making him sound like that. Edging closer, she lets Haji curl his widespread hands in her hair. Cradling the shape of her skull with the Chiropteran claw, while the human hand caresses her cheek, thumb tracing her lips.

Not pressuring, but giving her full reign.

Leisurely, she toys with him, until the head darkens and gives off a tear of wetness. Lowers her lips to breathe out a stream of air, watching him jerk and quiver.

"Saya— _please_ —"

God, he is so vulnerable like this. So hers. The buzz of power is intoxicating.

"Well," she says, "since you said 'Please'."

He gasps as she lowers her head, licking delicately at the slick tip. Hot. Salty. She opens her mouth and takes him in, suckling gently. Haji bites back a raw, edge-of-breath noise that dissolves into a moan. His hands tighten in fistfuls into her hair, then drop.

She dares a glance. He is breathing in that rhythm that always reminds her of when she readies herself for a high jump. Disciplining himself, muscle by muscle. Gathering his control. Except his face is closed-up and unsteady in a way that telegraphs his terror at making the leap.

She lets him slip from her lips, to say, "Don't hold back tonight." Taking her hands, she unfolds them as if metamorphosing dead spiders into blossoms. Drops a kiss to each palm, human and Chiropteran, before returning them to her hair. "Please, Haji. Whatever you want."

He exhales a low noise of torment. A blush stains his cheekbones, the dip of his throat. Her Haji—shy. It is always as endearing as it is astonishing.

Leaning in, she presses wet kisses up and down the heavy vein, licking all around the head. His skin feels as soft as her inner thigh, the pulse a secret thrum. Sighing, Haji threads his fingers tighter through her hair. Not tentative anymore; he shoves himself inside without prelude, a deliciously heavy slide across her tongue, and she lets him, raw breathy sounds catching in her throat.

This is hardly unexplored territory for her anymore. She's mapped out a successful blueprint, so well-practiced it is second nature. She lets it take over, savoring and suckling, building an inexorable rhythm. Slow and then fast and then slow again, her tongue arrowing itself and flickering beneath the head. The water gets in her eyes, and her knees grow sore on the tiles. But she loves stringing this out to torment him. Loves the lewd wet noises of her throat as Haji jerks deeper into her mouth. Loves taking him in, past halfway, and feeling him quiver on the precipice of restraint. Loves hooking her entire arm around the crux of his body, fingers clutching at his hip, denting muscle, and luring him in deeper as her efforts grow progressively hungrier, more purposeful.

Gradually, Haji begins to shake. He breathes in thready gasps. Letting her know what she is doing right, how close he is. She steals a glance up at his face. He is miles always and yet pinned in place: messy-haired and openmouthed, cheeks high with heat. A beautiful prisoner. More beautiful is the wicked rock-and-roll of his hips, and those throaty uncensored sounds as he edges closer, a symphony of pure raunch that jellies her knees and scorches her skin until she is moaning around her mouthful, handfasted to him like a starveling, a succubus. Like she needs him to come just as badly as he does.

His climax is sudden. A titillating possibility one moment— _everywhere_ the next.

Saya swallows as much as she can. The rest drips from her mouth, washed by the shower-spray. Salty, heavy, good.

Panting, she licks her lips. She is thrumming all over, especially between her thighs. It is an effort to focus on Haji instead of her own begging body. "Are you oka—?"

She can't finish. He has swooped in for a kiss, without prelude or primness. Not squeamish, her Haji. Never about this.

They stay that way for a moment, the water raining down on them, swirling across the tiles. Haji's kisses melt, as the moments pass, from sloppy, to tender, to worshipful. Then he draws back, finally, to turn off the faucet. Scoops her into his arms, breathless and half-sudsy, and carries her into the tub.

They sink together into the water, as if into a warm blanket. Sighing, Saya sprawls against his chest, giving herself with hungry languor to his kisses. Beneath the surface, his hands roam over her body, tracing the dip of her spine, the curve of her bottom, the lines of her thighs, before delving between them.

It shocks a gasp out of her. She tries to warn him that she is bleeding. Because they may be Chiropterans, and they may have eroded every other boundary, but she's always drawn the line at this type of play.

Too late; Haji's fingers ghost over her mons, stirring the curls, then slipping down and into her. The slick crooking pressure makes her mewl, fingers knotted in his hair. Her whole body throbs in every particle. She can feel the blood seeping out, turning the water a demure shade of rose.

Haji inhales sharply and breaks the kiss.

"Saya?"

"S-Sorry." She flushes all over: need and chagrin. "I should have told you sooner. Do you want to stop?"

He doesn't answer. His eyes, blinking into hers, are dark yet intensely unreadable. Black and blue.

After a beat, he shakes his head.

"You're sure? Because if it's an issue—" She is unsure what _Issue_ to choose from. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable. If you'd rather do something els—"

It ends on a scream _—_ a thin ragged scrape of sound in her throat as he drags her closer, until she is nearly straddling him. Between her thighs, he sinks two fingers deeper into her, while his thumb finds her clitoris and begins a slick circling, until the world goes red, then hazily black.

Unbalanced by hot water and slippery skin, she clutches tighter at his hair. It feels as if her entire body is trying to leap upwards, away from that exquisitely shrill pitch of sensation. Haji anchors her with the cool splay of his Chiropteran claw across her back, and with the sharpness of his teeth sinking into her breast, tugging on the nipple, greedily suckling.

Saya's breath catches on another cry. Her hips are doing a lewd, helpless jig against his hand, and he's working his fingers inside her with a cadence that is less _Come, come to me_ and more the way a cellist performs the vibrato motion on the strings, a fluid articulation of wrist and knuckles and fingertips.

When her climax collides with her, it isn't a crescendo but one cadenza of a dozen blossoming and dying inside her. Haji feels it, and his hand jitters for the smallest iota of a second, with a hitch-and-gasp of his own that gusts icy cold across her nipple, before he sucks harder, urges her higher. No longer a cadenza but a carnage of heat and friction.

Saya's head tosses back, short licks of hair pasted to her face. Her cry echoes off the tiles, a broken sobbing song that shortens, softens, and finally subsides as Haji takes his hand away.

"Oh God."

Hot-cold, trembling on gasps, Saya lets her eyes fall shut. Her body slumps against Haji's, damp hair plastered to his breastbone. She can feel his heart thudding nearly as fast as hers.

Daring a glance, she finds him lifting red fingers to his lips. He licks them idly, his face softening in open curiosity, then something else. Dark and dreamy. Heavy with secrets.

Flushing, Saya drops her gaze. It's embarrassing enough right now. In the full clarity of daylight, it will be absolutely mortifying.

But instead of wrenching away, she takes his head in her hands and kisses him. His lips are salted with copper. His tongue too—probing past her lips, turning her radiant in his arms. She shuts her eyes tight against what they are doing. Yet their uneven breaths, the wet thirsty friction of lips and tongues as their tastes mingle, are a testament to the impossibility of holding back any longer.

It is futile to try.

Still kissing, she folds their wet bodies together in the span of her arms and thighs. Bites the hem of his lower-lip, and begins to rock her hips under the waterline, the tick-tock of a pendulum clock, savoring the dreamy diffusion of pleasure between them. Haji drags in a gasp—too-sensitivity darkening into something else as the seconds pass, the burn of resurgent hunger. Between their bodies, he stirs, filling again.

She wants to tease, _You're insatiable_. Except she is the one shifting to guide him in.

" _Saya_ —"

"Ssh."

As she sinks down, she breaks the kiss, eyes fluttering open on Haji's. Loving how the tension slips like water from his blissed-out face. The way his arms pass around her, enveloping, possessive, so her breasts and belly mold themselves to the hard plane of his torso.

And with one long hot slide and two short gaspy cries, they fit.

 _Yes_.

Dizzied, she steadies herself with one hand on his shoulder, the other tangled in his wet hair. It's almost uncomfortable; the water has washed away some of her natural lubrication. Except she wants him right here and now. In the drifts of steam, a slippery film of heat coats their bodies, a delicious coolness. Her throat is full of emotions she can't name.

Tentatively, she squeezes around Haji. His groan resonates up and down the tiled space, up and down her body. Trembling, she drops her forehead against his, glowing rings of red locked on a nucleus of arctic blue. Squeezes again, harder, and begins a tidal roll of her hips.

Their breaths wash in and out, a raw and heavy cadence. She smells water and cedar and soap and sex, overlaying the bite of blood. The pale swoop of his throat seems to call to her. Her fangs ache to descend. But when their eyes meet, it is Haji's fangs that fill her line of sight, a bright afterimage like after a lightning strike at sea.

Before she can jerk away, he burrows his mouth against her neck, teeth on skin.

Saya shudders—shock? pleasure?—and grabs his hair.

"Don't—!"

He freezes.

In that moment of inaction, full of him, enfolded by him, no movement but their thudding heartbeats, she hears the words bounce off the tiles.

She can always subdue him with a single command.

Haji breaks off on a shaky inhale. His hand gently clasps her neck, smoothing the vein with his thumb. She forces herself to meet his eyes. His gaze is no longer burning blue, but smoky with regret.

"Forgive me. I-I did not ..."

"It's okay." _It's my blood that did it. Always, my blood._ "I should have been—more careful."

Careful of what? Of breaking taboos? Or allowing their Chiropteran impulses to override the human?

Haji keeps on caressing her jaw, a touch so light she barely feels it, except that it races across her spine. Leaves her at once melty and vibrating. It hits her then: what is she so afraid of? _Haji_? The one person who has proven, over and over, that she can trust him in any state, under any circumstances. The one who'd rip his own throat out before daring to touch hers.

Absurd.

Her failure to open herself to him, even now, speaks of the meager trust she has in her own self, not him.

"Haji?" Her pulse races in the steamy air. Anxiety. Want. "Do you—want to feed from me?"

" _Saya_."

He looks as if she's suggested treason, or blasphemy. Maybe to a Chevalier, it is both?

Gently, he takes her weight in his hands, lifting her off him. It isn't a withdrawal but a repudiation. Shuddering, she resists.

"Haji, it's all right. I take blood from you all the time."

"That is different." It is a rasp of distress. "Having you like that—even a taste—would be overwhelming for me. To offer me your _throat_ —"

"Haji. I don't believe for a second you'd hurt me."

"Saya—"

"I trust you. I'll tell you when to stop."

He is silent for a moment. She feels him fighting, not her offer itself, but his own yearning for the gift.

This quells her own misgivings. Suddenly, she is awash in tenderness, and wildly aroused. Gently, she catches his face in her hands. Sinks down, not onto his erection but into his gathering arms. The kiss she gives him is loving, languid, luscious. Haji trembles, and she does too—for different reasons. When she breaks off, his eyes are shiny as if with unwept tears, and she can see a tiny Saya reflected in each pupil.

"Please." She kisses his mouth again, and draws it to her neck. He nuzzles it feverishly. "Go on. I want this."

"You are certain?"

"Oh God. _Yes_."

Then she is locked in the cage of his arms, his fangs in her throat. The bite is deep, and deliberate, and dizzying. She has never felt anything like it before. It is different from the battle with the Phantom. That had _hurt_ , a twisted wire of agony from the point where his teeth had sunk in, down to her sinews, and her bones, and her whole essence that was being yanked like ichor out of her neck and into his swallowing mouth.

It had felt like renunciation, and defeat, and death.

A thought flashes—was this how Haji had planned to kill her, at the Met? Cradle her in his arms? Kiss her goodbye? Drain her dry?

There is no way to ask.

No reason to—because this isn't death. This is pure _life_. Her heart blooms in her chest, a flowering heat that spreads everywhere. He holds her snug against him, clawed hand splayed at her hip, the other cradling her skull. His lips make a seal on her neck. No waste, no mess; he is locked in on the exact spot her blood flows, betraying both practice and practicality.

It would shock her, except her thoughts are bright red, rolling in and out of her skull in waves. Shivering, she encompasses him in her arms. Listens to the sounds he makes as he feeds, hypnotized hums and sighing swallows. His body radiates an astonishing warmth, and begins pulsing everywhere. His strength is not merely replenished, but redoubled.

The implication stuns Saya.

This isn't about nourishment, like when she feeds on Haji. Her pleasure at being bitten doesn't stem from the abject gratitude of being bittersweetly taken.

It is a Chevalier's duty to give. His be-all and end-all. Whereas this is her gift. Bestowed, not as a sacrifice, but a balancing act in blood.

Too soon, he stops.

A trickle of blood spills from her neck. He licks it off reverently. Lifts his head, sharp-fanged and red-mouthed, to fix her with glowing blue eyes. The room reels; she sways drunkenly in his arms.

"Are you all right?" he whispers.

She smiles drowsily.

"Forgive me. I should not have taken so much."

"You didn't take enough. You can have more."

"Sssh."

He combs her wet hair with both hands. Kisses her—a hot tang of blood, a sweet tremor of thanksgiving. She has never seen him so profoundly shaken before. Her body throbs all over from his bite, and its aftermath.

"Was it good, Haji?"

Eyes closed, he nods.

"What did it taste like?"

"Sssh," he repeats, as if refusing to utter a sacred incantation.

Her smile widens. Straddling his lap, she feels tipsy, satisfied, voluptuous. Her hands slip between their bodies. She takes his erection—glowing-hot—in both palms, her thumbs imparting a slow caress.

Haji groans darkly, and opens his eyes. She decides she likes him best this way: at once debauched and elegant, curlicues of dark hair fallen around the pale angles of his face, his eyes both heavy-lidded and aglow.

Usually, the fathomless hunger of that look embarrasses her. But for once, she feels equal to it, because she has given him something worthwhile.

"Haji." It is both invitation and imperative. "Weren't we in the middle of something?"

The next moment she is caught back against the tiled wall, to a shrill cry and the splatter of bathwater. Cradling her weight in his widespread hands, Haji shimmies down her body. She gasps as he dips his head between her parted thighs, licking her delicately with the tip of his tongue. She is seeping-red and aching-hot. He closes his mouth over her and suckles on a purling growl, his tongue lapping at her, then stabbing her open, drinking and devouring her, sometimes slowly, sometimes with savagery, until the last of her equilibrium shatters.

Her scream is a blast of red, shudders sluicing down her body in one long exclamation point. Then Haji's fangs glint in the gloom, tracing the inside of her thigh, a split-second before he _bites_.

" _Ah_!"

Humming, he takes a hot sucking kiss there, the tips of fangs piercing skin. Blood wells from each isolated point. Saya tenses, then teeters, her eyes fluttering shut. An ethereal euphoria seems to spread to each meridian in her body—adrenaline crowded out by endorphins.

Haji's own body melts into heaviness. Eyelids drooping; breaths slurring. The heat of her blood—its flavor—seems to narcotize him.

In different circumstances, she would never permit any of this. He would never dare it. Except tonight is about breaking boundaries as much as rebuilding them.

Too soon, he lets go. Thumb pressed tight where his mouth was, sealing the wound. Then he is surging up to kiss her, the aftertaste of blood and arousal as sharp as sea-salt. Hanging from his shoulders, in the grip of gooseflesh and a thrilling lassitude, she lets him pin her with the full force of his body. Her toes curl when he hooks her thighs over his arms, opening her wide. She lets off a hissing sigh as he fills her: she is exquisitely sensitive and he is so _hard_.

He drives into her with force, so she slides up and down the tiled wall, slick-skinned and overheated. She hears herself crying out, short rhythmic cries that transmute into something wilder. Each of his thrusts flares up and down her body, tipping her to the brink but not past it, again and again. Her nails scrabble at his back, sketching a net of red streaks.

And then he takes all her weight in his Chiropteran claw, wedging the other hand between their bodies. Coaxes her toward the edge, once, twice, again, with a ruthless insistence; her climax coming with high spasming wails, as if in shock.

Colors flash before her eyes. Fade, slowly, into the blur of onyx tiles and milky steam, so she feels like she is floating down into darkness and up into light, again and again, by Haji's mouth and hands and the dragging heaviness of him inside her. The pleasure is no longer sparking; it resonates through her slackening limbs and thubbing pulse.

Dizzily, she tangles shaky fingers in his hair.

"Haji—I want—"

Understanding alights his glassy eyes. He tips his head back to present his neck. "Saya—"

She senses his abject _Please_.

Her mouth slips to his throat. The _crunch_ of fangs on skin, the spicysweet taste of his blood, his shuddering cry as he is bitten, spangles through her. A glad offering.

As she drinks, Haji's face opens in her line of sight, glowing as a moonrise. He is moving now for his own release. Pace and desperation building, her whole body jolting across the damp tiles. Stroking his hair, crossing her ankles at the small of his back, she breathes his name as he climbs. When he reaches his snapping crest, biting down a harsh groan, she feels powerful, complete.

Subsiding on gasps, Haji slumps down the wall, taking her with him. They collapse into the tub with a massive _splash_.

Drenched and wobbly, Saya combs up his hair in wet tufts, tracing his hot skin beneath her palms. Licks at the seeping wound on his neck, sealing it. He is everywhere solid and shielding. Yet she senses his helpless gratitude. As if he is under her protection, as much as she is under his.

Mutually pledged.

* * *

 _It's a good thing they took this to the bathtub, and not the bedroom. I can't even imagine laundry day for whoever would have to wash the carnage off their sheets._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed! Review, pretty please! :)_


	42. Bavalengro

_Rabbit Rabbit :)_

 _Happy Feb of 2020, everyone! We've finally reached the grandmommy-chapter of the tale - namely the long-awaited culmination of Saya and Diva's ghost-bond, and also a meeting with ancestral Chiropteran Queens themselves! Expect lots of angst and mysticism, in addition to general wtf-ery!_

 _Hope you guys enjoy! Review, pretty please!_

* * *

The late-afternoon is humid beneath the forest. Shafts of sunlight, glittering with dustmotes, stir in dappled patterns as the wind sighs through the trees. Straight ahead, a hillside, cobbled with rough stones, slopes up toward a _minka_ —a traditional thatched-roof hut.

Saya shades her eyes in the dizzying brightness.

 _This is the place._

It took her an hour to find it. Not far from the Miyagusuku tombs—but far enough off the beaten track that she nearly lost her way. But the directions from the friendly _yanchu_ at the tombs are good. This is where that mysterious old woman resides.

 _Yu Shimbaku._

Saya's pulse pounds behind her eyes. Not fear of the impending meeting—but of getting caught. She hasn't told Haji where she is.

Or what she plans to do.

Sneaking out wasn't easy. The entire family has been on tenterhooks these few days. August has sent a squadron of Red Shield agents over. They are stationed everywhere: at Omoro, at the twins' apartment, at the villa, even at the hospital where Ezra's surgery is scheduled for later today. Shaking them off was difficult. But evading Haji's omniscience was by far the greatest challenge.

In the end, she'd asked him to check on Sayuri and Sayumi. It is a win-win. Yuri's due date is imminent. She knows that Haji is concerned, however much he downplays it. She also knows the twins are more unnerved by the toxin than they're letting on. Hopefully Haji's presence will act as both an analgesic and an armament.

 _Keep them safe._

Meanwhile, Saya clutches with dreamy avarice her memories of the past days. The purest pleasure on the night of Haji's bite, and the base gratitude emanating from him. Afterward, they'd stayed twined together in bed. The curtained window had washed the colors out of everything, blurring her thoughts into white-noise. Haji's eyes had been fixed on hers, half-lidded as she drifted off.

Giving bliss its own spectrum: the brightest blue in the room

Tears burn Saya's eyes.

 _I'm sorry, Haji._

 _I have to do this._

The sunlight darkens. Her sandals crunch over cobbled stones and dead leaves. She wears a kimono—the blood-and-ivory one that Nathan had given her. Beneath it is the necklace with Diva's stone, half-talisman, half-memento. In her pocket, the ampoule with the wolfsbane ticks away like a timebomb.

 _Soon._

 _Very soon._

The hillside steepens and then narrows into a natural bridge. The _minka_ sits stolidly at the end. Below, stumps of bony white trees jut like skeletons. Saya is struck by the profound silence. It is as if there is a spell around the space.

 _Nothing alive may enter._

Saya wonders, walking with grim steadiness across the bridge, if she counts.

Up close, the _minka_ is less picturesque, more rustic. Its boarded walls are stiffened with clay and rushes. The inverted-V framework, interwoven with bamboo rope, is pierced by a central chimney, poking up like a wick. Gray coils of incense drift out. They waft into Saya's nostrils, letting loose a smoke-tickled sneeze.

" _Kusuke_!"

Saya jerks.

The phrase is the Okinawan equivalent of _Bless You—_ with a twist. It translates into _Eat Crap._ The belief is that evil spirits may steal one's soul mid-sneeze. The curse is intended to scare them off.

"Nearly got away from you," Auntie Yu chuckles.

"Got away from me?"

"Your _mabui_ , silly girl."

The _yuta_ stands at the hut's doorway. No white kimono or headwrap; she is clad in a plain blue _yukata_ , her unbound gray hair wisping around her face like tufts of candyfloss. A wild rabbit is nestled in her arms. The _yuta_ caresses it idly. In the sunlight, the wrinkles radiating from her eyes and bracketing her mouth remind Saya of the bark of a _gajumaru_ tree. There is a sense of deep internal pressure ingrained into her body, a proud map of her life history.

It makes Saya awkwardly aware of her own body—pale, poreless, perfect. A cipher.

The _yuta_ gives Saya the once-over. "Hm. Lopped off your pretty hair. Lice?"

"What—? _No_."

"Just askin.'" She knuckles a sleep-crumb from her eye. "By the by, you're lookin' a sight better than before. Well-fiddled an' well-fed." She winks. "You cook your man into _afakee_ stew?"

Says shakes her head.

"Lettin' _him_ sup on your _afakee_ nightly, then?" Her laughter whorls out like smoke rings. "Well, there's a type who's happiest on his knees. Keeps 'em where you can see 'em, _saa_?"

Saya grits her teeth. "I need to talk to you."

"Ain't we talking?"

"Not in riddles."

"Not even in greeting?" She titters and dips her head. Her fingers comb through the rabbit's plush fur. " _Hassa_. See how brazen she's become? Ragin' everywhere like an angry red fire. Her family won't be able to keep up. They're only human, _saa_?"

There again. The double-edged insight that pierces through Saya's chest. The _yuta_ leans against the doorway and yawns, affable and easygoing and utterly unaware that she's said anything of import.

Saya no longer buys the act.

"Who are you?" she asks. "What do you really do?"

The _yuta_ shrugs a shoulder. "Anything. Everything. Liftin' a curse. Makin' a poultice. Savin' a soul, or damnin' it to _jiguku_." Her lips quirk, but Saya isn't sure it's a joke. "You here to be saved or damned, little star?"

"I need answers." Saya edges closer. "When we last met, you _knew_ who I was. You _knew_ what would happen to me."

Auntie Yu's lips peel back from her teeth. Each one is delineated with brown from lifelong tobacco use. Even in the bright sunshine, her eyes are so dark that the pupil and iris are indistinguishable.

"Oh?" she says softly. "What's happened to you, little star?"

Saya's breath comes in a ragged rush. Inside her, something unravels: the last iota of resistance to the truth of herself. Against her hard-won habit of secrecy, she tells the _yuta_ everything. About Tórir. About her miscarriage. About her visions. About the snake in Akamine's belly, and the description of the blue-eyed girl. It doesn't feel like disburdening herself. It is like passing a skein of poison from mouth to mouth.

When she is finished, Auntie Yu's expression isn't disbelieving. It is dismayed.

" _Natteoru mon_!" she exclaims. "You're in a heap of trouble!"

She lets the rabbit drop. It meets Saya's eyes, little nose quivering, then scampers inside the hut. Auntie Yu swivels after it.

"C'mon! _Nama-namaa-sun!_ We ain't got time."

Saya frowns. "Time for what?"

The _yuta_ has already disappeared indoors.

Saya hesitates, then toes off her sandals, crossing the threshold.

The _minka's_ interior is spare and simple, no screens for separate rooms. No furniture to speak of, either. Only a folded-up futon, and, in the center of the room, a square _irori_ —a raised cooking hearth—where a potbelly kettle of burnished black iron hangs suspended by a hook. The walls are bare, save for an alcove holding the _butsudan_. The place is scarcely big enough for two people; its sloping roof, with beams knotted together, creates a closeness that is almost claustrophobic.

And yet, the moment Saya steps inside, she is struck by the mystique of the place. Something vibrates through her, sonic figments of memory overlapping like the tines of a windchime.

 _A woman, fierce-eyed and dark-haired, stepping past the doorway. Kneeling in prayer, on the eve of battle. A vial is clasped in her palms, its seal bearing the crest of a moon ringed by a serpent biting its tail. She speaks to someone whose face remains unseen._

 _"If he lives," she says. "You must forewarn my kin. You must forearm them."_

 _The unseen figure nods. The sunlight shifts through the windows, dazzling streaks moving across the floor. They catch the sheaves of an ivory-and-blood kimono hung from a rod on the wall. A kimono with a familiar pattern: red foxgloves splashed across the sleeves, and snakes darting in spideweb-fine paleness across the obi._

 _The same kimono Saya is wearing now._

The memory gusts away like a winter chill, leaving Saya in goosebumps. She stares at the _minka's_ interior with new eyes. The space seems to acquire a muted glow, incandescent with intimacy. A message that she is meant to be here.

" _Ayena_!" Auntie Yu chides. "Don't stand there all slack-jawed! Come here!"

She kneels by the _irori_. Saya does the same. As she performs the action, her body feels strange. Déjà vu encases her like a second skin.

"I—" she starts.

Auntie Yu cocks her head.

"I've been here before," Saya whispers. "I don't know how that's possible."

Auntie Yu chuckles. "If it ain't possible, then how can it to be?"

Saya shakes her head. "It couldn't be me. Was it—?"

 _Sunako?_

Auntie Yu doesn't answer. Lifting the kettle from its hook, she pours tea into two earthen cups. She nudges one towards Saya. Herb-scented steam curls from the amber liquid.

Almost formally, she says, "What was once, will be again. For the people of Okinawa, this is _shinjichi_. A fact of life. As the moon halves itself, so it grows round again. As the spirit dwells in one earthly vessel, so it passes to the next. There are those for whom the passage goes smooth. And others… for whom there is no passage at all."

A sickle of light falls through the window. It slices a band of brightness across Auntie Yu's eyes. "When I saw you last, you was askin' about your sister. Stringy little thing, you were. Afraid of your life. Afraid of yourself. New here you are, marchin' up to seek answers, all boilin' with _iji_. Bold as bold."

Saya frowns. "You still haven't given me answers."

Auntie Yu's laugh holds a wavering edge of wistfulness.

"Answers," she says. "They ain't no simple thing, little star. _Kutuba noo ushikumaran._ What is spoken cannot be undone. What if you dislike what I tell you?"

"That's for me to decide," Saya says.

The old woman hums in agreement.

Cradling her teacup in both palms, she takes a sip. Her eyes slip shut, and she murmurs, "You must understand, girl. _Mabui_ is more'n spirit. It's the essence of the self. After death, some _mabui_ cling to their livin' kin. Especially those dyin' in times of bloodshed. Other _mabui_ flee the body if'n there's trauma. They leave the person a breathin' shell. It happened to many, after the war. You've heard o' _that_ at least?"

"Operation Iceberg," Saya murmurs.

" _Tetsu no bōfū_ ," says Auntie Yu. "Typhoon of steel. Many lost their _mabui_ to the slaughter. Some were misplaced forever. Wandering night an' day without rest." She reaches out, her burn-scarred fingertips tracing the red stone of Saya's necklace. "Often, the dead's belongings capture a drop of their _mabui_. Like a _kaba-kaja._ An old fragrance."

"My sister," Saya whispers.

" _Ii_. The sister who's been cleavin' you in two. Blurrin' your world at the edges." Resolve reshapes the _yuta's_ face. "There's a ritual to separate one _mabui_ from another. Like oil from water. Takes time, but it can be done." She touches the sleeve of Saya's kimono. "Except it ain't the sister you should be worryin' about, little star. It's the others. I told you about 'em, _saa_? Eyes like hers. Eyes like yours. One wove this kimono from the softest-spun silk. The other wore it to battle, dyeing it with her blood."

Saya eyes widen. "Then—this kimono belonged to—?"

 _My mother?_

 _My aunt?_

"They who swore to undo what was done." Auntie Yu sounds for a moment sorrowful. Then she smiles. "You're wearin' their clothes easy. But it ain't so easy to be wearin' their vengeance."

Saya's heart judders hotly in her chest. It's back again, stronger than before: a sense of the supernatural. Looking into Auntie Yu's wizened face, she wonders if the old woman is just that: an old woman. Or is she something closer to Saya? A creature outside of time, wrapped in deceptive layers of ordinariness?

"Who are you?" Saya whispers.

Auntie Yu gives her a small smile. But her eyes glitter too darkly.

"Little _fushi_ ," she says. "Last we met, I was telling you to be ready. For when it happens. For when he comes. You heeded my words. Fattened up and sharpened up. Got yourself _kweeta_ with daughters. Let 'em be your shields, so you'd live to fight him another day."

"Him," Saya whispers, then understands.

"You're knowin' his name," Auntie Yu says. "You're knowin' his nature. _Akamaata_ , we call his ilk. Named after a demon in Motobu. A snake with the power to transform himself into a handsome man. Seducing the village girls, then leaving 'em all twisted in agony from carryin' his children. That's not what you're wantin', _saa?_ "

 _Unless you prefer that viper's spawn in your belly._

Saya flinches.

"That's why I came here," she says. "I want my daughters to _live_. If he touches me, he can kill them. I must keep them safe."

Something seeps across the surface of the _yuta's_ face. Sadness. Solemnity. She gazes down into her teacup, as if divining something in its depths.

"I remember," she murmurs, "long ago _,_ I was called across the seas. To see a beautiful woman who was wastin' in her childbed. She was a _monoshiri_ like myself. An oracle. But at the mercy of men with souls as black as _akaamata_. She begged me to kill her." Auntie Yu sighs. "What could I do? Sage, mage, midwife—I was all o' them things. I tried to tell her _._ _Warabi mo iru noni, iya ga shikkarisan ne, cha su ga_. You got to be strong! You got two children to care for! She'd hear none of it. She already foresaw the destruction of her kind. She wanted her daughters to live in her place. Carry on the family line. _Keep them safe._ It was her dying wish."

The words whipsaw through Saya. She gasps, caught in the grip of a gut-deep epiphany. The _yuta's_ eyes are pitch-black—the irises gone, a thin band of otherworldly color at the edges. The energy fizzing around her is the same, mesmerizingly potent and yet familiar as lightning, as stormy seawaves, as a thicket of bone-white trees.

Something aligned with the natural order of life itself.

"Then it was you!" Saya cries. "The one who gave the wolfsbane gift to Sunako! Who conjured up that talking snake!"

The _yuta_ offers the faintest of nods.

"But _how_? You—you're not a Chiropteran! How are you still alive?!"

Auntie Yu clucks her tongue. "Thinkin' you're the only one who walks outside of time? Who suffers an' awakens to suffer again?" Her eyes glow in the dimness, the brightest spots in the hut. "My _fushii_. You've a lot to learn before the day is done."

"I—"

"Sssh. Listen to Auntie Yu. Listen, and do not fear. Everything you are, you will be when you leave my home. Everything you weren't, it will die with the last daylight." Her hands clasp Saya's, and something flows between them, a crackling wave of power. "You're wantin' to save your daughters, _saa_? They're barely nothin' yet. Just two specks in your belly. But with one touch, he can kill 'em. End your _kwamuchi_ before it begins."

Mutely, Saya nods.

"Girl o' mine. I've doleful news. Nothing in the world can save 'em. But shield 'em? From his bites an' his kisses alike? I can give you plenty for that."

"What do I do?" Saya whispers.

Auntie Yu dips her chin toward the tea.

"Drink."

"Wh-what?"

"Black haw. Cramp bark. Oat Flowers. And a pinch o' _ichijama_."

Saya frowns. "A pinch of feelings?"

Auntie Yu heaves a mighty sigh. "Not _jimu_ , girl. _Jama_. Sorcery. What in your mother's tongue, they called _Seiðr_. The gift—or curse—of the gods. The _kami_ have passed it down to womenfolk for generations. Here, an' elsewhere." She sobers. "This tea is what I gave your mother. To keep her daughters safe in her womb. It was taken by the light of the blood moon, same as it'll rise tonight. It will keep your daughters in one piece too… but only for so long."

"If it worked for my mother, why not here?"

"Because of the _mabui_. The spirit. You an' your sister were ready to be born." Her palm brushes across Saya's midriff. "Your daughters are seed. Less than seed. A _tin_. A blood-speck. Their _mabui_ is not yet rooted."

"But—"

"Drink." Gathering up the folds of her _yukata_ , Auntie Yu rises. "After, I'll make you an ointment to mask their scent from _him_. Then we've got to prepare."

"Prepare for what?"

"The _mabui-gumi._ To keep the spirit safe."

Saya stares at her. "Whose spirit?"

"Yours." The old woman's tone is vexingly absent, her mind on the task ahead. Around her feet, the rabbit scampers, lured out from its hiding place. "It's time you spoke to your ancestors. Learned their secrets for what lies ahead. You understand, _saa_?"

Saya can only nod. In her bones, she does understand. But there seems no way to translate the understanding to speech.

"Good," says Auntie Yu. "I'll make the offerings. I'll say the prayers. I'll keep watch as your _mabui_ leaves your body. But I'll be needin' an _ikari_."

" _Ikari_?"

"An anchor. Anythin' special to you. A name. A place. A word. Somethin' to keep you rooted to yourself."

 _An anchor?_

Saya hesitates. Inside is a tiny pinch of fear, leftover from nightmares, that none of this real. Worse, that it's a trap, a farce, a madwoman clutching at straws—or spiraling deeper into derangement.

Yet, at her core, she knows it is not.

She exhales, and words slink through her mind like koi-fish through a pond, colorful dapplings of memory. _Diva. Haji. Kai. Riku. Yumi and Yuri._ Each name carries a pocket of warmth, a reaffirmation of her purpose. Yet the word that her mind curves around like a fish-hook isn't a name. It isn't even a place. It is a moment in time, nearer than far, that took her breath away. A moment where she was suspended on the brink of terror, only for it to melt into sweetness.

The moment Haji had met her eyes, and stunned her with a quiet revelation. Of his steadiness, his loyalty, his acceptance of every fatality that had swept into their lives. But also demonstrated to her the truth: that _haunted_ did not mean _halved_. That no matter what she was struggling against, she wasn't alone.

" _Bavalengro,"_ Saya whispers. "The word is _bavalengro_."

* * *

A vista of snow-dusted cliffs.

There are stone buildings here and there, pretty as sugar-cakes, with whitewashed roofs. Yet Saya's fascination is for the land itself: flat stretches of greenery extending to every vanishing point. Each blade of grass is perfect, studded with frost. It rolls outward, a mystical emerald vastness, unspooling as if from a giant spindle.

Yet nothing stirs or makes a sound.

The air—or is it the space enclosing the air?—seems trapped in a bubble. Frozen. Here and there, snowflakes hang at eye-level, revolving slowly in place.

Saya stares at a single flake, inches from her face.

She touches it with a fingertip. It melts into a red splotch, and hits the snow.

Then comes a voice.

 _"All goes in the way of blood."_

The snowflakes are fixed, but Saya isn't. She spins.

The figures who appear before her are no taller than she is. Two females. _Girls_ —Saya can't help but think. Both are clad in simple white dresses. Yet something about them is as timeless as the cliffs. They are an extraordinary pair: one looks like a photographic negative of the other. The first is fine-boned and shockingly pale, her beauty like a chandelier: impossibly intricate and fragile. Her blue eyes radiate a multifaceted glow. The second is dark as wild honey, her body a smooth twist of sinew. Her mouth reminds Saya of a peeled fruit, redly glistening. Her hair is knotted in dozens of braids; when she tosses them back, her eyes burn into Saya's like red-hot sparks.

Red like hers.

Saya's voice dries up in her throat. " _You—you are—"_

 _"Sunako,"_ says the first.

 _"Saya,"_ says the second.

" _We each like the other's name better than our own."_

 _"So we introduce our other self, before our own."_

Their words pour in a singsong, lapping and overlapping. The syllables are foreign, yet they sink like snowflakes inside Saya, melting into familiarity. Their bodies, aligned together beneath the vast skies, are like tethers of a triangle, bright lines of energy weaving between them. The same energy Saya feels when she is with Sayumi and Sayuri, but stronger. Not like a seal of secrets but a portal opening, preternatural power spilling out.

Saya's vision wavers. Unexpected tears fill her eyes.

 _"I wanted to see you,"_ she says. _"For so long."_

 _"Is seeing believing_?" Sunako asks.

 _"Is believing knowing?"_ asks her mother. Then she smiles. _"But it_ has _been long."_

 _"Too long,"_ Sunako agrees.

In unison, they hold out their arms. Saya stumbles into them.

The embrace is like nothing she's ever experienced. Nothing—not the bluest slice of sea, not the sweetest of Haji's kisses, not the savoriest of Dad's homecooked _soba_ —comes close. She floats in newfound contentment, she brims with newborn bliss. For years, she's tied herself to the mast of solitude: a quest, a vendetta, a suicide. She's never given a thought to her peace of mind. Now it overflows through her, filling every empty space that she'd not even realized was there.

It goes beyond love. It is a rightness of place.

" _Kære_ ," says her aunt.

" _Allerkæreste_ ," says her mother.

 _"All the love we saved for you."_

 _"All the lessons."_

 _"You learnt them on your own."_

 _"No better teacher than tenacity,"_ her mother sighs.

 _"Or adversity,"_ Sunako grins.

Saya squeezes her eyes shut. For a moment the sense of being enveloped by these women, strangers and yet not, suffuses her with giddy little-girl goosebumps. She takes a breath to get a hold of herself.

 _"He's told me about you,"_ she says. _"Your Chevalier."_

The two Queens' heads tilt toward each other.

 _"Whose?"_ says Sunako. _"Her Fox?"_

 _"Or her Viper?"_

 _"Um…"_ Saya scrubs the tears from her eyes. _"He goes by Nathan lately."_

This provokes something unexpected from the Queens. Laughter. Such familiar laughter. Her mother's is an airy, breathless giggle—the same ribbon of sound that she'd passed on to Diva. Sunako's is husky-edged as an oboe d'amore, identical in pitch to Sayumi's.

Staring at them, Saya can trace the miracle of heredity: an earlobe like hers, a forehead like Yuri's, a chin like Yumi's. She'd never thought it relevant before. Her ancestors could have been warriors or witches; it mattered little in the grand scheme of things.

They were ciphers, like her past itself.

Now she understands what she missed out on. Never knowing her roots, and subsequently a part of herself. Knowing what she is capable of, but not the boundaries she breaks or fits into simply by being who she is. The web of blood, and where it tangles into a knot, and where it smooths into belonging.

 _"Nathan,"_ Sunako smiles. _"Nátan."_

 _"He kept the name I bestowed,"_ her mother says. _"Besotted boy."_

 _"Brave boy."_

 _"He had his moments."_ The blue eyes dip away. _"Unlike like the other."_

 _"Tórir."_ Sunako's red lips curl back, her teeth sharp as needles. _"A mistake I would cleave the cosmos to undo."_

 _"He's after my family,"_ Saya says. _"I need to stop him."_

The two Queens nod as one.

 _"We will show you the way,"_ says Sunako. _"He must die and you must live."_

 _"You, and your sister's daughters,"_ says her mother. _"The scales have too long been tipped. Balance must be restored."_

 _"Balance?"_ Saya asks.

The Queens exchange a glance. There is kinship in their gazes, but also challenge.

 _"Shall I tell her?"_ Sunako asks. _"Or shall you?"_

 _"She is flesh of my flesh,"_ her mother says. _"As are you."_

 _"Together then?"_

 _"As we marked our place in history."_

 _"As we turned its tides."_ Sunako takes Saya by the chin, red eyes locking on red. Her skin is tough as sun-warmed leather _. "Kære. Were you never told why we exist?"_

Bemused, Saya shakes her head.

 _"A pity."_ Her mother sighs, and strokes Saya's face. Her fingertips are cool as polished marble. _"Allerkæreste. You must mark our words."_

 _"Abide by them."_

 _"Live by them."_

 _"Die by them."_

The sun breaks through the gray-bellied clouds to speckle the vista with brightness. The scenery shifts. It is disorienting, like a kaleidoscope pattern. First a green cliffside, then a waterfall. Its boom carries over the roar of the seawaves, a powerful white froth pouring into the deep blue bowl of a basin. The sun angles through the clouds, its rays hitting the spume; it reminds Saya of the milky shimmer on glass during the rainy season.

She and the two Queens sit at the edge of a low-lying precipice. Their feet dangle off the edge. The flyaway foam dampens their bodies. Saya thinks fleetingly, _I know this place_. _Nathan spoke of it. A waterfall spooling into the sea._

 _"Bøsdalafossur,"_ says her mother. _"Our old haunt."_

 _"As old as we,"_ says Sunako. _"Giving back what it has taken from the sea."_

 _"Keeping balance,"_ says her mother. _"As we once did."_

 _"Balance?"_ Saya whispers.

They smile as one. Their hair is strung with crystallized beads of moisture, skins exuding warmth and scent, an aroma like a thunderstorm massing at the horizon: lightning-fire and petrichor.

 _"All living creatures exist for a purpose,"_ says Sunako. _"Some live for beauty."_

 _"Others for barbarity."_

 _"Some live to create."_

 _"Others to destroy."_

 _"So it is for us,"_ Sunako says. _"The blodfødt have existed as long as mankind itself."_

 _"So many names,"_ says her mother. _"So many faces."_

 _"As many as the moon itself."_

 _"Hela."_

 _"Brigid."_

 _"Ishtar."_

 _"Isis."_

 _"So many arrows of words,"_ her mother says. _"Each one leading home."_

Saya shakes her head. _"I don't understand."_

The Queens exchange another glance, but this time their solemnity is a cover for mischief.

 _"She takes after you,"_ Sunako says. _"Full of questions."_

 _"Better than silence,"_ says her mother. Then her attention is on Saya, undivided, _"As with the cosmos itself, all life must seek balance. A birth for a death. A beginning for an end."_

 _"Chaos for order,"_ Sunako says. " _Hate for love."_

Saya frowns in belated understanding. _"The serpent biting its tail."_

 _"Very good, allerkæreste."_ Her mother smiles pristinely, _"The serpent circling the blood moon. The sigil of our dynasty."_

 _"All are caught in her coils,"_ says Sunako. _"She is ever-encompassing. Ever-flowing."_

 _"Yet as fixed as the waterfall."_

 _"Changing."_

 _"Choosing."_

 _"Balancing."_

 _"Becoming."_

Saya's eyes widen. _"Wyrd."_

Her mother touches her lips to Saya's forehead. The softest kiss.

 _"Yes,"_ she says. " _Such was our purpose. To flow alongside mankind."_

 _"To build bridges."_

 _"To break boundaries."_

 _"To discover truths."_

 _"Or unmake them."_ Sunako stares broodingly at the waterfall. _"Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel."_

 _"Fate goes ever as she must,"_ Saya whispers.

Her mother regards her with pride. _"As shall our little allerkæreste."_

Saya wants to smile back. But something troubles her. _"You mentioned balance. Does that include… right and wrong?"_

The two Queens laugh again. It is a dark heavy music like the waterfall. Saya has an intense sense that she isn't in the presence of ordinary women, but two beings carved out of time itself: beyond the quotidian limits of morality. Their ethical centers are more aligned to the complex machinery of nature, at once pure and pitiless.

 _"What was once right is wrong,"_ Sunako says, _"What was wrong once paraded itself as right."_

 _"And on it will go,"_ says her mother. _"Just as we do."_

 _"Yet it cannot touch us,"_ Sunako says. _"Our purview is balance."_

 _"Through knowledge."_

 _"Through mystery."_

 _"Through peace."_

 _"Through war."_

 _"War?"_ Saya echoes, a wingbeat of dread fluttering in her chest.

 _"Of course,"_ says her mother. " _War devastates, but it also purifies. Replaces complacence with conviction. Stagnation with strength."_

Saya shakes her head. In her mind, a red flower of memory opens, sensory motes of Vietnam erupting. Blood and flames. Bodies. The screams of the living and the dead.

 _"It's not always like that,"_ she says. _"What about the suffering? All the lives lost and families destroyed?"_

Sunako sighs. _"She is very human."_

 _"Softhearted,"_ her mother agrees. _"But not simple."_

She lifts a hand, caressing Saya's hair. _"Allerkæreste,"_ she says. _"We are not purveyors of senseless carnage._ _We battled alongside humans to expand the world we shared together. We took to balance what we gave. Art. Science. Song."_

 _"Like despots, we despoiled,"_ Sunako says. _"Like conquerors, we spilled blood. Soaked ourselves in depravity. Inveigled our ways through tragedy."_

 _"And like sovereigns, we were bastions of order,"_ says her mother. _"In the old state of nature, humans were free, but their lives were bleak, brute, brief. Under our realm, they traded their aimlessness for aspiration. A cloistered life for a communal. A demesne for a dirge."_

 _"And if our realm was less-than-perfect—feh."_ Sunako shrugs a shoulder _. "Is the illusion of sanctity not everything?"_

 _"Or the illusion of humanity,"_ her mother murmurs, with a faraway smile.

The bluntness of their words disturbs Saya. In one breath they own their barbarousness, and in the next they bask in its beauties. Maybe it is their nature, one rooted not in morality but duality. Or maybe it is the nature of their realm itself, structured not as a city on a hill but a bloodthirsty behemoth, its veins pulsing with violence from start to finish, yet with an inner-sanctum of splendor that spawned thousands of empires in its wake.

 _"Wars as equalizers, we sowed in abundance,"_ says Sunako. _"Erasing the old, engendering the new. But wars as profiteering? That is a mockery of our ways. A gift from Tórir, who sold mankind its spoils and its glitters."_

 _"Violence for its own sake,"_ says her mother. _"Cruelty to breed more cruelty."_

She raises a hand, and the piercing blueness of her eyes ignites. The scenery darkens, snow swirling. The water below is dotted with bright red blooms like the mushrooming imprints of jellyfish. Inside, images flicker, a jerky loop in nightmarish stop-motion:

 _Cities fallen like matchsticks. Fires blaze, bodies sprawl, blood splattered in spiky blots on walls and gleaming in huge pools across the ground._ _Armies cut swathes of terror through the land, leaving despoiled women and limbless children in their wake. Brothers fight with teeth and nails for scraps of spoiled meat. Fathers barter their dull-eyed children for handfuls of coppers. Humans cower, starved and sobbing. Queens huddle in caves, faces streaked with grime. A line of soldiers drag captives along in chains, boots trampling over misshapen skulls. Fog washes out the sky, ash raining from explosions. In a cradle, two infant girls mewl, tiny ankles in shackles. On a bed, a girl screams, her bound body taken by a familiar one, the brutality of the act obscene, her sobs stripping the air as Tórir arches over her, his red hair a starburst of bright blood in the lamplight and his two-toned eyes alight with triumph…_

—And with a short-circuiting suddenness, the images fade. Saya is left trembling all over, blood streaking her face.

Her blood?

The two Queens—Blue and Red—watch her impassively.

 _"He cares nothing for the law of Blodfødt,"_ says Sunako. _"The balancing act of give-and-take. He knows only his hungers, and his hatreds. His law is not the primal law, but the lure of arrogance. You must correct it. You must settle the score."_

 _"An eye for an eye,"_ says her mother. _"A life for a life."_

 _"Revenge,"_ Saya whispers.

 _"A human word,"_ Sunako says. _"With human connotations."_

 _"We seek only to tip the scales,"_ her mother says. _"His life—for the countless that will be lost. His defeat—for insurmountable defeats of humanity. We ask that you struggle, not to resurrect our empire, but to preserve what little is left. Yourself. Your kin."_

 _"There is blood on all our hands,"_ says Sunako. _"Nothing will wash it away. But there is one forcer that binds us together. In death as in life. Tórir has slithered from her grasp for too long."_

 _"Wyrd,"_ says her mother. _"All—even we—are subordinate to her supremacy. We can shape her, but never shatter her. Nor should we try. Wyrd shows us the truth of ourselves, by our choices. She gives us our power, or takes us furthest from it."_

The tremble in Saya's bones threatens to become a breakage. She hugs her arms tightly across her chest. Hot blood drips down her face, though she feels no wounds anywhere.

 _"What if this is wyrd, too?"_ she rasps _. "What if Tórir is meant to kill us all?"_

 _"Perhaps he is,"_ Sunako shrugs a shoulder. _"But—"_

 _"But what?"_

 _"If such was wyrd, would you journey all this way to see us?"_

The truth of this sinks into Saya like a knife. It aches, but doesn't she flinch from it. Wyrd or vengeance, she needs to protect her family. She needs to keep anyone else from getting hurt. She doesn't fully understand the origins of Tórir's vendetta. She only understands its hatred. An undiluted hatred, endless and rapacious, the shadow twin of his bright smile and cavalier manner. A Chevalier who sought to subdue his fate, and the Queens themselves. Through cruelty, through cunning, through conquest.

Wyrd—the realm of Queens—isn't devoid of those qualities. It is as brutal as it is unyielding. It calls for winners and losers, and leaves no room for weakness. But it isn't chaos for its own sake.

Tórir's dream is.

 _If I let it happen._

Saya's heart quivers in her chest. Her words come without forethought.

 _"All right,"_ she whispers. _"I'll do it."_

The Queens smile. Two co-conspirators relishing a secret.

 _"We knew you would_ ," says her mother.

 _"We bled for it,"_ says Sunako.

 _"Dreamt for it."_

 _"Died for it."_

 _"To keep you safe."_ Tears brim the cups of her mother's eyelids. _"You and your sister."_

 _"An imperfect vow,"_ Sunako says mordantly. _"It kept you safe from him—but not from each other."_

Saya's breath hitches, and she lowers her gaze, motionless except for the spill of tears. Deep as her joy at this reunion goes, her grief for Diva will always go deeper.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ she whispers. _"About Diva. I—"_

" _Sssh_ , _allerkæreste."_ Her mother encircles an arm around her. _"Your sister will be with us."_

 _"Soon,"_ says Sunako. _"Her time with you is nearly done."_

 _"Would that you both lived,"_ sighs her mother. _"Would that I could rewrite your fates."_

 _"She cannot,"_ says Sunako. _"I cannot."_

 _"What's past is past."_

 _"But the present remains."_

 _"Your present,"_ her mother says. _"Your choices."_

Her eyes are on Saya's, blue as the sea. Charting out the intricate tides of her life.

 _"Beware,"_ she whispers. " _that you choose wisely."_

Saya feels cool air on her teeth; her mouth is open to speak. Below her dangling legs, the waterfall churns up a milky spume. Then a shape surfaces from its depths. A girl—dark-haired and milk-skinned. Lips slightly open, light glinting on the points of her fangs. She hums low in her throat, and opens her blue eyes.

Staring into them, Saya's pulse shivers in recognition.

 _"Diva,"_ she gasps. " _Diva, what are you—?"_

The scenery ripples around her. Colors bleed into blackness. The two Queens on either side of Saya, and the shape of her sister below—everything disappears. Saya's own body is caught in a current and ripped away. She struggles, helpless against its force. Against the inexorable power of Wyrd itself.

Behind her, Diva's voice calls out. It could be something sisterly: _"Be careful."_ Or something sad: _"Farwell."_ Or something sweet: _"I love you."_

Whatever she says, Saya doesn't hear. A dark liquid silence fills her skull, and sweeps the words away.

* * *

" _Bavalengro_."

Saya wakes up blind.

She is sprawled on a futon, dented with the impression of its owner's body. Blood crusts her eyes and smears her face; she smells its stale copper tang on her skin. Her hands rise in reflex to scrub it off, but someone holds them gently down.

"Easy, little star." It is Auntie Yu. "Slow an' steady."

Something cool and damp across her face. Wiping the blood. Her skin sizzles as if in a fever. Like white-hot rivets scattered across her brainpan, after-images of the Queens' faces burn into her. Red eyes. Blue eyes. Counsel and kisses. Warnings before the war. And at the last, Diva. Her body a live starfish floating in the water.

"What happened?" Saya tries to say. But her throat is gluey with blood.

A smooth rim touches her dry lips. A cup of water. Its icy sweetness hits her molars: pure heaven. She swallows too quickly, and coughs.

"Slow," Auntie Yu titters. " _Chu no iu koto o kikan kara ya saa._ This is what happens when you don't go listenin'."

Saya takes a breath, then sips slower. Her boiling-hot body cools by degrees. Her eyes flutter open.

Twilight has deepened the gloom of the hut. A bronze _tōrō—_ a traditional hanging votive—dangles from the ceiling. A single candle burns inside, wind licking the flame. Two moths swoop around it, their furry bodies battering against each other, shadows arcing crazily across the walls. Outside the hut, she hears the bristling of insects: grasshoppers, cicadas, spider crabs.

"What—" she rasps, "What happened?"

Auntie Yu kneels by the futon. She looks careworn, but pleased. " _Ayena_ , girl! What d'ya think? I got back your _mabui_!"

"My _mabui_?"

"Nearly got away from me. Like _miji_ , it was. Slippin' through my fingers." She makes a fist. "Had to keep a tight hold. Else you'd lose yourself. Run dry."

Saya sits up. Her body feels bruised and tender. Like raw meat. But inside is something stranger. An absence. It is like having a tumor excised, a scarred ache where there was once unbearable pressure.

Then she spots it. Her necklace, with Diva's stone winking in the lantern-glow. It rests in the middle of three rocks. The rabbit lies beside them. Belly torn open, ribs glistening through cleaved fur. Its misshapen organs are heaped inside a bowl.

The _yuta_ dips her fingers into the bowl. Blood paints their tips.

"Done an' done," she murmurs. "My offering of rice an' _awamori_ weren't enough. She was wantin' blood."

"She?" Saya echoes.

Auntie Yu nods. " _Deeji kaakin._ Real thirsty, your sister. Was she born that way?"

 _Sister_.

Saya shivers. The seepage of shock is like icewater.

"You spoke to Diva?" she whispers.

" _Ii_."

"But _how_?"

"Sssh. Lie still." The old woman rearranges Saya's blankets. "It's as I was tellin' you. Some _mabui_ cling to their kin. Get so entangled it becomes a _machibui-kaabui-sun._ A hopeless knot. As your sister's _mabui_ became with yours." Her face is gravely pale in contrast to the flickering red sun of the lamp. "Luckily, there's a ritual to separate one _mabui_ from another. Like oil from water. _Mabui-wakashi_ , we call it. We say cleansin' prayers and make offerings. We separate the two spirits, an' make sure the deceased is at peace."

"Deceased?" Saya rasps. "Then—Diva was never—?"

The old woman's gaze slips sideways. "Never livin'? You know she wasn't, little star. Dead for years now. So dead she's starving for _life_." Gently, "When your _mabui_ left your body, hers stayed behind. I spoke to her. _Nu ya ga, ittai,_ I asked. What's the matter? Why aren't ya moving on? _Pas avant que ma soeur soit préparée,_ she kept sayin'."

Saya's heart lurches. " 'Not until my sister is ready'."

Auntie Yu sighs. "I fed her blood. I held her hand. I kept tellin' her. _Hurry up and go home!_ Wasn't right, I told her, to cling to her sister so tight. She wept an' whined an' wailed. Took hours before she was ready."

"Ready?"

"To go where she belongs. With the _gwansu_. The ancestors."

Saya's breath hisses like her throat has been slit. "So she is—?"

"Free. You of her. She of you." Auntie Yu leans closer, her blood-flecked hand touching Saya's. "Your _mabui_ is your own again, little star."

Stunned, Saya stares at the old woman. Outside, the evening washes into nightfall. The two moths carry on thumping their bodies against the _tōrō_. The rabbit's blood glistens like oil on the _yuta's_ fingertips.

Nothing has changed. Yet the space inside Saya is irreversibly altered.

She shakes her head, but she isn't sure at what. Her hands tremble under Auntie Yu's. She breaks their grip, and reaches for the necklace in the center of the stones. Diva's red crystal feels warm in her palm. The surface shimmers, shards of luminescent light caught in each facet.

But the solace Saya once felt from touching it is gone.

Saya's head dips down, her bangs obscuring her face. Her shoulders spasm. A ragged sob works its way from her chest, then another and another. Inside, the dam of self-control finally collapses. The outpouring of relief is indistinguishable from agony. She hadn't understood, until this moment, how ferociously she'd clung to the hope that Diva was still with her. The loss of it burns through her system. She doesn't feel finished with her sister. She will never be finished. Her death will remain for as long as Saya is alive.

A bittersweet reminder that she _is_ alive.

Burying her face in her arms, Saya sobs—for Diva, for their mother, for Sunako, and at long last, for herself. The rock shines like fresh blood in her palm; she cradles it like something nearly as precious.

The final fragment of her old life.

"Sssh, little star," Auntie Yu murmurs. " _Warabi mo iru noni, iya ga shikkarisan ne, cha su ga_."

 _You have to be strong._

 _You have two children to care for._

The same words once spoken to her mother. They pass through Saya with supercharged meaning.

Thousands of years old. Potent with newfound purpose.

* * *

 _Translations of the Okinawan:_

 _afakee - clam_

 _jiguku - hell_

 _Nattoeru mon - This is awful_

 _Nama-namaa-sun - Hurry up_

 _iji - fire, zest_

 _kweeta - big_

 _kwamuchi - pregnancy_

 _miji - water_

 _Hang on to your hats, as the next few chapters are awash with disaster, and their fair share of tragedy! Hope you guys enjoyed, and let me know your thoughts on the ancient Queens!_

 _Review, pretty please! :)_


	43. Koan (Part I)

_Oh boy. Everyone done hyucked up now :D_

 _Seriously: expect plenty of mayhem in this chapter and the next. Also keep the tissues close? Shit is finally hitting the fan._

 _As always, I welcome all feedback and critiques! Hope you guys enjoy!_

* * *

The Fuzhou Gardens are deserted.

The silhouettes of Chinese-style pavilions are carved into the starless sky. The early blood moon burns at the eastern altar, circled by a fine band of luminescence. Its intense brightness shoots scarlet veins across the lakeside, ghosting over the treetops and sinking into the marble statues, turning them pinkish like blood churned through snow.

Saya's footsteps cut through the imperfect silence. She moves in a determined path down the cobblestones. Her eyes are on the marquee at the far-corner. The _obake_ flower section. The moonlight falls through the fabric, delineating the tent's exoskeleton. It reminds Saya of something composed of pure bone.

A monster risen from the dead.

Carefully, Saya lifts the tent flap. The scent of moist earth and decaying flowers seeps out. The interior is dark save for a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. It throws pools of shadow everywhere, a riot of contrasts like an over-exposed photograph.

A tall figure stands in the center.

"You received my message?"

Saya's heart skips, like a clock refusing to keep time. But her voice is quiet as a tick, and as steady. "…Yes."

Tórir half-turns. The cold yellow light from the bulb sharpens his cheekbones. His mouth holds a shape of humor.

"Alone?" he asks. "Nothing to spoil our _tête-à-tête_?"

Saya doesn't answer. From the sheath strapped to her spine, she withdraws her katana. A dim patina flashes across the surface. She extends the blade straight-on, a fencer's _sixte_.

"Swordplay?" Tórir quirks a brow. "Atyay isthay ourhay?"

"Shut up."

She edges into the marquee. Tórir's mismatched gaze stays on hers, darkly smoking. It reminds Saya of a firepit that can never be extinguished. It should sicken her, all that insatiable burning _need_. Instead, it slithers inside her, like incense, like a serpent. Makes her feel things she refuses to feel.

"Going to kill me?" Tórir whispers.

"Killing is the least of it."

During her journey here, Saya had, for long vacant moments, felt nothing. Now an intense hatred gathers, an icy black shell blocking her off from everything but Tórir. She remembers the blood and destruction in Karachi. She remembers the night of her miscarriage, the agony inside her womb a contraction, a carnage. She still dreams of her daughters. Drowsing in bed in the early mornings, she can sometimes imagine holding them, nursing them.

Now they are gone. And for what? This coward, and his blood-grievance against the Queens. It has festered for eons, carrying over to their kin, revenge enacted as a slow-seeping poison.

Nathan is right. He _is_ a viper. He's been circling her for months, his coils constricting tighter and tighter, trapping her in his hold.

She refuses to yield.

"All this time," she whispers, "You've been lying to me."

Tórir's jaw twitches, but he says nothing.

"That day at the cemetery. It was you who attacked me. The night in Karachi. That was you too." Grief distorts her voice. "You _killed_ my daughters."

Tórir doesn't look at her, but stares out across the bricolage of flowers. His eyes settle on a nearby exhibit. It is creepily Gothic: a frilled tongue of _Teppōyuri_ , wine-dark, licking across the air. From the center, an appendage juts out. Black and sharp, its surface lewdly glistening. It gives off a peculiar scent. Sweet, yet with a vile undernote like rotted offal.

"Do you know what that is?" he asks.

Saya stares at him, hostile and confused.

" _Dracunculus vulgaris_. Also called the Snake Lily. In full blossom, its scent attracts pollinating night-insects." He points to the dark spike. "The spadix has a hidden chamber. Full of poison. Ugly as it is, the lily understands the art of subterfuge."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"According to folklore, its venom wards off snakes. Wash your hands with its juices, and you can even slay dragons." He smirks, but can't sustain it. "The plant is highly reclusive. It spreads only by self-seeding. And it cannot tolerate direct sunlight; it thrives in the shadows." His eyes flicker, almost sadly, to hers. "I have always been drawn to shadowy things. _Habu_ vipers. Cinnabar moths. Poisonous flora. In a way, I've felt a kinship with them."

Unexpectedly, his eyes blaze. "Then again, why should I not? I've had to hide what I was my entire life. Fathered by a traitor. Mothered by a whore. Scrounging for scraps while _your_ family—the Queens responsible for my fall—languished in fortresses. They played their war games. They sang their incantations. They reduced my entire family—mother, father, brother—to pawns for their amusement. While they wore furs and finery, I walked with sores on my feet. While they basked before a blazing fire, I shivered winter after winter under a fleabitten blanket." He bares his teeth. "I vowed to myself: if I was given the iconoclast's scythe, I would tear the Queens' world apart. I would send them scurrying from their lofty towers and into the gutters. I would lock them away, watch them grow as haggard and desperate as I had been—and I would know that justice was done."

" _Justice_?" Saya's throat is scorched with rage. "Is that what you call it? Massacring thousands? Raping my mother? Killing my children?"

"Restoring _balance_." He sneers it as a mockery more than a rebuke. "The one duty charged to the Queens. _Rulers_ _of_ _Wyrd_. And what did they do? Flung my family to a lower plane, while they occupied the higher. Permeated my boyhood with fear, and misery, and bloodshed. All for what? Because they were the stronger? Because they were _chosen_?"

"You were chosen too!" Saya snaps. "You became a Chevalier!"

"Only through my own efforts." His lip curls. "I forged the Vǫlur's decree. I secured my brothers a place at court. It was our chance to invade the Queens' sphere. Young boys longed to be chosen as _blodprinsen_. For glory. For honor. What they lost was their innocence, that milk-and-butter purity that goes arm-in-arm with privilege. My brothers and I had no such illusions. We already knew what life was. Dirt and disorder, hate and hunger. We vowed to visit the same upon the Queens. All we needed was an opportunity. A misspoken word. A spilled secret. Anything that turned the tides."

"You killed them all." Saya's eyes narrow. "That wasn't enough. You had to come after _my_ family as well."

Tórir shakes his head. "Not your family. _You_."

Saya's knuckles whiten on her sword-hilt. "As your broodmare."

"As yourself."

"What?"

Tórir's eyes trace the curves of her face. She watches the hot, endless hatred in him distort into softness.

Worse.

Something queasily like love.

"Before I became a _blodprinsen_ , my world was poised on a pinprick. My focus was on food, shelter, safety. An animal under threat from all sides. My brothers were the same. Scared, and starved and impotent. I believed that was the summation of life. A sickness cured only by revenge." He expels a soft sigh. "The Red Queen—Sunako—changed that. She showed me a different life, of power and purpose. She made me thrall to her body, and her blood. But the Blue Queen, your mother, granted me something _more_ precious."

Bile churns through Saya. She dreads what he's going to reveal next.

"Did you—" she swallows. "Did you father me and Diva?"

Tórir's eyes go big with disbelief. Then he begins to laugh. Not diabolical laughter. This is pure hilarity, as if for a gag-gift he hadn't anticipated.

Saya nearly kills him for it. She could do it easily. In cold blood, in hot. He deserves it. All his surface charm is a ploy. _Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't._ He doesn't possess an iota of remorse for anything he's done. He will only do worse. Her vision at the _yuta's_ hut has imprinted his atrocities into her brainstem.

 _Do it._

 _Do it now._

Then Tórir's laughter hiccups to a stop. He wipes the tears from his eyes.

"I know who fathered you," he says. "It was not I."

"Then who?"

He leans over the multicolored pinwheel of a passionflower. Tenderly, his fingertips trace the petals. Saya feels each touch like a seasickness across her skin. But Tórir doesn't look at her.

"My brother," he says. "Jøkill. A skilled swordsman, with a mind to match. You remind me of him."

Saya's jaw tightens. "I hardly take that as a compliment."

"It was not intended as one." He speaks without bite, both hands cradling the passionflower. "Jøkill was your father. But everything you are is through your own force of will. In that, you are very like the Red Queen. But also like …myself."

Affront spikes into fury. Saya's palm flexes on her sword-hilt. "I'm _nothing_ like you."

"Aren't you?" His two-toned eyes narrow, burning her, freezing her. "I have sipped your blood, remember? I know your sordid little secrets. Revenge is, at its core, solitary. As you have been for too long. You've weaned yourself on it. More than that. You've _gorged_ yourself. It is in your very marrow." Softer, "Just as it is in mine."

His words threaten to strike home. Saya wards them off with a shudder.

"My revenge is done," she says. "Yours has carried across _centuries_. It wasn't enough for you to kill the Queens. Now you're trying to enslave their _children_ , too!"

Tórir's expression changes, bitterness superseded by hurt.

"Enslave?" he echoes. "Is that what you think?"

Saya says nothing.

Tórir's hands drop from the flower to dangle at his sides. His stare goes right through her, a radioactive heat-melt. Saya hates the overpowering physical pull he still wields. She'd mistaken it as an inherited affinity from the Red Queen.

Now she understands it is worse.

It is an attraction that flows from blood to blood. His to hers. A red knot of recognition that tugs them together, because in their own dreadful way, they are a pair, two monsters carved from revenge. A revenge they've cosseted like treasure, glittering and sharp-edged, a prize they've never wanted to lose, because that means losing a part of themselves, and the game itself.

Except Saya's game is finished. The war is won, or lost, and Diva with it.

She has a life now. A resting-place.

She has her daughters.

 _That's why you have to kill him._

 _Do it now._

Then Tórir whispers, "It is true I had plans for you."

Saya drags her attention back to the moment. "What?"

Tórir's expression is caught somewhere between tenderness and loathing. "It is true I wanted to have you. To hurt you. It is true I took your daughters from you. It is true I took the vial of poison, too. Everything I have done since awakening in this world was to gain mastery over you." Frustration shades into fury. "At first, I thought it was for revenge. To make you suffer as I did. I hoped to make you my plaything. As I was once the Red and Blue Queen's. And yet…" He sighs. "And yet each time we have met, something has stayed my hand."

Gooseflesh rises to Saya's skin. His stare invades her, cold and dark as a viper's tongue.

"Cowardice?" she sneers.

"That would be simpler." A smile twitches to life on his lips, then dies. "I told you before. The Blue Queen granted me something infinitely more precious than vengeance. I had daughters by her, before you were ever born. Two morsels of sweetness. Their names really were Sváva and Suffía. The day I held them was the day my vendetta collapsed at my feet. All that mattered was keeping them safe." His palms flex, as if he can still imagine cradling them. "I did not lie when I told you they were gone. Taken too soon. My one chance of peace—gone with them. In their absence, all that remained was my hatred. Of the Queens. Of humanity. Of myself. All the failures that led to their loss."

His expression, twisted with grief, is nearly enough to stir Saya's sympathy. Then she thinks of her own daughters, dead before she could hold them. Dead because of _him_. The reminder erases any emotion.

 _Now._

Lightning-fast, she lunges. The force knocks Tórir over. Her sword cuts a brilliant arc toward his neck. But he catches her wrist at the last moment. The ear-splitting _crack_ of bone echoes through the tent.

She cries out.

"I hate interruptions," Tórir says.

She lashes out with her left hand, her right imprisoned in his grip. But he anticipates the move and catches her fist. His kneecap—in a brutal concussive strike—rams against her ribs. A flash of white-hot pain explodes through Saya. She tries to twist free. He follows it up with a walloping headbutt. The _wham_ resounds through Saya's skull, her teeth snapping to cut her own tongue. Her sword clatters away.

In the next blink Tórir rolls, reversing them so he is on top of her, pinning her arms. Saya's world reels. Her broken wrist throbs in time with her pulse.

Looming over her, Tórir is a replication of her ugliest nightmares. Except his eyes smolder not with bloodlust but bewilderment.

"There again," he murmurs. "My hand stayed."

Blood dribbles from Saya's mouth. "Wh-what?"

"You still do not understand." He exhales. "I do not want to kill you. I want you to come with me of your own free will."

"Come… with you?"

"I want the empire I could not build. The daughters I could not have." He leans closer, red hair falling like blood-quills down his face. "I want them with _you_."

Saya's broken wrist knits itself together in needles of agony. Her words are more breath than voice. "You're… _insane_ …"

"Am I?" His mouth is a sardonic twist. "Perhaps so. Love-starvation is a kind of insanity, isn't it? I should know. I was the child of a whore. They're love-starved as a rule. They fuck, and fuck, and fuck. They devour every vice, wring heat from every depraved act. Yet not a drop of love comes from it. The emptiness becomes its own madness. They must have something of their own. A lover. A child. A place." He chuckles. "I was all that for the Red Queen. She loved to show me her power. Over my body, my life. She took me like she was starved for me. But then, I was starved too."

Saya stares at him. A hundred words tremble on her tongue. She swallows them down like blood.

"You know what that is like," he says. "Your vengeance was meant to sate the emptiness in you. it never could. Your sister was the same. Hinging her entire existence on her children, until the need devoured her whole." His face spasms. The seams of his cool mask are coming apart. "I am no better. I kept thinking your downfall would ease my malady. I see now it won't. _Nothing will_." Quieter, "It is not just me. _You_ feel it too."

Saya grits her teeth. "I don't know… what you're talking about."

He is a monster. Not the kind who hides beneath children's beds, but who walks like an ordinary man. Who disguises his cruelty with charisma, a breadcrumb trail to lure his targets to their doom. Saya recognizes his brand of predation, because she's lived her life struggling against it. Like knows like; diamond cuts diamond.

He is all her darkest impulses made flesh.

"I told you," Tórir whispers. "I am done biding my time. I want what only you can offer me."

"I can't offer you anything! You're so caught up in your hate that it's all you know! An empire won't fix that! Daughters won't! Whatever you want, I can't give it to you!"

Tórir's eyes go half-lidded, a dark hypnotism of honesty.

"Then let me give _you_ what you want," he says. "A place. A purpose. Two trueborn daughters, instead of some spineless dog's leftovers. We could raise them together. Teach them to be pure, and so teach ourselves. Relearn to love ourselves, through their eyes." His voice drops to a sinuous whisper. "There is a koan the monks recite. _What was your real face before you were born?_ I would like to know mine, before I succumbed to the mania of vengeance. I know you would, too."

"I told you. My vengeance is _done_."

"Is it?" His hands tighten on her wrists. "Yet here you are. Ready to wage another war. Ready for a taste of the purpose that only revenge can offer. _Haji_ won't give you any of that. You know it in your bones. I took your blood, remember? I know the secrets that stand like walls between you."

"I—"

Saya's whole body flares with conflicting impulses to fight, to flee. She won't admit he is right. He might have been, once. But his timeline is of another Saya. One who knew nothing about herself, or Haji.

They'd both been lonely for so long, clinging to the war instead of to each other. The only language they could speak was suffering. They believed love was the same. Something to be hidden away. Puzzled at like a koan. A love that would've become a quandary—if their friendship hadn't disclosed the truth, as small as a stone, fitting into the heart of themselves with the rightness of completion.

The truth that love isn't meant to crash-and-burn. It is meant to fly without fear.

 _Kill him._

It is Sunako's plea, and her mother's.

 _Now, Saya._

 _Do it._

Tórir regards her with rich complacence, "I do not see you hastening to contradict me."

"No." Saya's eyes glow as if dynamited. "I'll settle for killing you."

With unexpected force, she breaks free from Tórir's grip, her left fist slamming straight into his cheekbone. He jerks off; she leaps to her feet, snatching up her sword. The blade cuts in a quicksilver streak toward his throat.

Tórir parries with his forearm. The _clang_ is not unlike steel striking off stone. Beneath his sleeve, his skin has calcified, a shimmer of scales across the surface.

 _Skala hud_ , Nathan called it. Scaled skin. Like a viper's.

Tórir's face is the same, eyes slitted, intensely unreadable.

"How now, my headstrong?" he murmurs. "Where have _you_ been gadding?"

"With your old enemies."

"The Queens in Niflheim." He tilts his head. "What have they shared with you?"

In answer, Saya presses her sword-tip between Tórir's scales. The skin slits open, glistening red as roe. Tórir flinches, then smiles. As quickly as the wound appears, it seals shut, the scales tougher than before.

"I could battle you all night without sustaining a mark," he says. "Your blood cannot kill me."

"The poison can," Saya says.

"That is why I ordered it retrieved."

"Not all of it." Her eyes narrow. "There's enough left to finish you off."

Far from blanching, Tórir smiles wider. "Shall we make a game of it?"

Saya stares at him.

"You try to kill me," he says. "Before my men do worse to your nieces."

" _What_?"

His words float through her, disembodied, disorienting. Then she understands. His message. The poison's theft. The attack on Ezra. Everything intended to catch her family off-guard. Keep them distracted, while Tórir lured her here, and IMB-UAWA made their move elsewhere. A trap she fell for, with galling ease.

Saya's pulse gallops, adrenaline overridden by horror. Tórir drinks it in with triumph.

Then he lunges, a venomous spool of muscle knocking her down.

* * *

Omoro is closed.

Through the half-cracked window, the night is humid with the scent of flowering diegos and chirruping cicadas. Dee is at the counter, brewing coffee. Behind her, Kai whips up a late-night _champuru_ , chopping up strips of tuna in practiced motions while noodles boil at the stove.

The twins are sprawled on the old sofa in the livingroom. It is the same spot where they used to watch Saturday morning cartoons as kids. Yumi has her hair messily pinned up, ankles crossed as she chomps on a bowlful of cashews. Beside her, Yuri is nearly pyramidical with her big belly. The hormones keep giving her heat-flushes; she fans herself with a magazine, forehead glossy with sweat.

Kai pities her. She isn't a dynamo of vervy energy like Yumi. But she rarely sits still, unless absorbed by a book. Now she's like a fat pupa waiting to streamline back into butterfly-proportions.

The Chevaliers tend diligently to her Royal Rolyness. V offers her sips of limewater, while Sachi sits on the floor, rubbing her swollen feet.

" _God_." Yuri sighs. "When will they come out?"

"Any day now," Yumi says, crunching on cashews. "That's what Julia-san said."

"I wish they'd _hurry!_ "

"Me too. I wanna see their gross little faces."

"Don't call them gross!"

"They always are! Until the magic tit-fairy makes them all chonky."

"Reminds me of a koan," V says. " _What was your real face before you were born_?"

Everyone stares at him.

"V," Kai mutters. "That you even know any koans is a disturbance to the cosmos itself."

V looks miffed. "What? I can't _read_?"

"We all have, umm, unplumbed depths," Sachi says. "V just makes do with a trivia app."

"Thanks a lot, asshole!"

"I'm hoping to teach the kids lots of age-inappropriate trivia," Yumi says, gleefully eyeing Yuri's belly. "Between kickboxing lessons and OD'ing them on candies."

"At this point, I don't even mind," Yuri sighs. "Anything to see my toenails again."

"Your toenails are fine." Sachi pats her foot. "Still, umm, minty green."

At the counter, Dee quirks a brow. "You've been doing her nails, Sachi?"

"She cannot reach them herself."

"Huh." Dee's brow climbs higher. "You do pedicures, too?"

"Sometimes."

"Dang. That's... Something."

"Quit needling him!" Yuri says. "Sachi is secure in his masculinity!"

"I wasn't needling." Dee sips her coffee innocently. "I was just thinkin' your old man never paints _my_ nails."

Kai doesn't glance up from his meal prep. "You don't own any nail polish, Dee."

"Would you paint 'em if I did?"

"Not unless it's a kooky foot-fetish."

Four voices jangle in near-unison—" _Ewww_!" " _Bruh_!" " _Jeez, that's gross_!" _"Kai has, umm, foot fetishes?"_

Dee smiles sidelong, and sips her coffee. Kai smiles back, wielding the sizzling wok with practiced smoothness.

Tonight's menu is pure monotony: the dashes of snark merely spice it up. Everyone is already on edge. At the hospital, Ezra's surgery is in progress. Julia, David and Adam are there—with a small entourage of Red Shield agents. The rest of the teams are stationed near Omoro, and at the villa, where Saya is.

Earlier, she'd sent Haji over to check on everybody. She had a _bad head_ , as the Chevalier diplomatically put it, and wanted downtime. Kai takes it to mean she's in one of her moods. He'd sent her a couple of texts, but gotten no answer. The Chevalier, meanwhile, has taken a sentinel's aerie outside, keeping watch for potential blind-spots.

To Kai, the set-up is disconcertingly similar to the war. As he busies himself with the stir-fry, it all comes back to him: the sunlit Paris streets, the shopping bags crinkled with pink tissue paper, the glossy squares of family photos. Back when Riku was alive, and Saya's innocence wasn't all surface, and Kai could sulk for days without deviation over the dumbest shit.

Before Diva blew through their lives and tore everything apart.

At the couch, Yumi _Ooohs_ at something Yuri says. They burst into laughter.

Kai's bubble of badness pops, and he's moved to dote on the shapes of their heads: old-young and strong-soft in a way that makes him smile.

Sentimentality is replaced by curiosity when V fishes out a napkin to dab the faint sheen of sweat on Yuri's forehead. Is it Kai's imagination, or do V's knuckles skim almost caressingly across her face? He expects Sachi to bristle with low-key territoriality. Except Sachi's attention is hooked on Yumi, his cheekbones uncharacteristically pink as he listens to her recite a tongue-twister about The Mysterious Banana…

Then Yuri squeals. "Ooooh! _Kicking_!"

Coffee and stir-fry abandoned, Dee and Kai rush to her.

"Hey! Hey!" Yumi wards off their eager hands. "Yuri's tummy isn't a free-for-all!"

"More like a wrestling ring." Dee tentatively touches Yuri's bump. "They're doing _suplexes_ in there!"

"Damn," Kai breathes. "Is it Tyke _Ichi_ or Tyke _Nii_?"

"I'm not sure," Yuri says. "V's the only one who can tell them apart."

V waggles his fingertips spookily. "Soooonaaaar."

Yumi swats him. "It's _your_ fault she's like this!"

"Hey! You _asked_ me to knock her up!"

"I thought her babies would be Queen-sized! Not mutant twelve-pounders!"

Sachi clears his throat significantly. "Does it feel like the regular kicking?"

"I can't tell." Yuri winces a little. "There's no contractions or anything."

"They say intercourse induces labor." Dee claps her hands. "Hup hup, Sachi."

"Umm? In front of everyone?"

"Unless you can peel her off the couch. She's practically grown _roots_."

Yuri smiles sweetly. "I can still hurt you, Dee."

"Okay, okay." Kai moves with purposeful strides toward the kitchen. "Fangs in, plates out. The chow's nearly done."

The low-hanging lamps throw cheerful gold tints across the table. The _champuru_ is brought in, with a jug of chilled green tea, and leftover _yakitori_ on skewers. The twins and their Chevaliers gather around, the savor of food bringing its genial glow to their chitchat, a warm layer over the disequilibrium of the night. Kai watches them eat, maintaining his usual breezy banter while also keeping an eye on Dee, who is too wound up about Ezra to eat much, and perches on the stool, handling her omnipresent headset as she corresponds first with Red Shield's units, then checks in with her family.

When Kai gets up and brings her a stick of _yakitori_ , she smiles. "Thanks."

"You good?"

She gives a single nod, then flicks off the earpiece. "Dad says Ezra's surgery's still in progress."

"Want me to drive you to the hospital?"

She shakes her head. "I'd be no good sitting around. I'm better off here."

She reaches for his hand, squeezing to transmit the message: _With you._

Kai relaxes into a smile, and squeezes back. For a moment the uneasy echoes of the past fade into the present: redolent with _champuru_ and glittering with flakes of gold.

Above, the floorboards creek. Haji's black-shod feet descend the stairs, followed by the black-shod rest of him. He is buttoning up his coat.

Kai crooks a brow. "Were you _flying_ over Omoro?"

Haji nods. His façade is stoic as usual. But beneath that is a zone of preternatural alertness. His eyes scan the periphery like ultraviolet radars. Not all of it has to do with Yuri's impending childbirth. Over the years, Kai has found the Chevalier apt at scenting trouble with his fine-tuned nose. This seems like one of those times.

Kai wants to ask, but Dee beats him to it. "Is the perimeter secure?"

"Unit 3 is experiencing a signal glitch," Haji says. "You should contact them."

" _Haaaaji_! Call Saya over!" Yumi cuts in. "Why's she cooped up alone at the villa?"

"I will ask her once I return there."

Kai frowns. "You're gonna head back?"

Haji nods. A single crease appears between his brows. "Saya is not answering my calls."

Kai and Dee exchange looks. _Shit_. That's a new development. Saya is sporadic about checking her social media. But with Haji, she seems to know when he'll call before he even does so. Kai remembers how, during Haji's tour, she'd toted her phone everywhere, peeling herself away from the group to curl up somewhere and _tip-tap-tip-tap_ secretively on the screen, her lips caught in a not-quite-smile. With Yumi and Yuri, Kai used to dole out lectures on tech addiction. With Saya, he'd just found it refreshing to see her act like an ordinary girl in love.

He gives Haji a look that is half-wary, half-pitying. "You guys didn't have a fight, did you?"

Haji glowers at him.

"Hey. Maybe she was mad and you didn't, uh, read the signs?"

Dee rolls her eyes. "She's a girl. Not a Morse Code chart."

"Excuse me—have you _met_ Saya?"

Haji is in no mood for wisecracks. "I must return to the villa."

He turns to go, but Yumi plucks his sleeve and Yuri pouts. With an inward sigh, the Chevalier kneels to fold his arms around them. His formality folds itself away too, smoothing into a low-key affection. Somehow, the sight of them—Haji embracing the two girls—reminds Kai how rare his visits are these days. Since Saya's Awakening, she's lassoed Haji's attention completely, unbalancing the routines he'd had with Kai and the twins, and the shape of his life itself.

A germ of pity crawls through Kai. For the first time he allows himself to acknowledge how tough it must be. Having your lady-love around for only three years, then losing her and having to keep living more or less unhappily-ever-after without her, only for her to return and flip your world upside down. How does Haji bear it? The loss, and the endurance of loss, and the erasure of loss?

 _How will I, when the twins leave too?_

Yuri has dodged her hibernation with the pregnancy. Thirty years of borrowed time, to be a mother and a daughter. But Yumi? How much longer does she have? Will Sachi have to knock her up soon to circumvent it? Lately, Kai has intercepted enough smoky glances between the pair to suspect it might be a possibility. But it's not something he can ask.

He shakes the worries loose and smiles when Haji touches Yuri's big belly.

"You are like a soap bubble," the Chevalier murmurs.

Yuri bats her eyelashes. "Rainbow-radiant?"

Yumi snorts, "More like toxic with sulfates."

Matter-of-factly, Yuri elbows her sister in the ribs. Yumi yelps, but doesn't retaliate. Evidently she believes the upcoming childbirth will be punishment enough.

Sighing, Haji straightens. "I meant you look ready to explode."

"I hope so!" Yuri huffs. "It's high time I was reunited with my toenails!"

"You'll have no time to paint 'em," Yumi mutters. "Between the late-night bawling and dirty diapers and fangy breastfeeding…"

Sachi goes queasily grey. " _Fangs?_ "

Kai tries to reassure the poor kid that newborn Queens are as toothless as the rest of 'em.

There is a sharp inhale. Dee lifts a hand to her earpiece. Her face goes bone-white.

" _Shit_ ," she breathes.

"What's wrong?" Kai asks. "Is it Ezra?"

She shakes her head. Her eyes slew from Kai to Haji. "Unit 3. They're not having a communication glitch."

"What then?"

"Unit 5 swung by their post." She swallows. "They're all dead."

" _What_?"

"That's not all. They can't get a read on—"

The lamps flicker, then short out. The pub is plunged into darkness.

Kai squints blindly. "What the fuck—?!"

Dee snaps on the flashlight on her phone. She and Kai are the only ones who need it. The remainder of the pack are Chiropterans, and can see in the dark as clearly as in daylight. Kai's gaze pings from one face to the other. Everyone wears urgent expressions, except Haji, whose features are schooled to stone. But in his palms, the daggers slide into place, perfectly balanced.

 _Thump._

Something has dropped onto Omoro's rooftop. Kai hears muted scrapes across the clay tiles.

V mutters, " _Puedo escucharlos reír_."

"Laugh?" Dee translates. "Who?"

"Ssh," Haji says.

He flows soundlessly to the window, spreading two fingers into a gap in the blinds. He stares out, the streetlights making a pale band across his cheekbones. On the street: a couple of cars. No pedestrians. The buildings nearby have lights shining in the windows. The power outage hasn't affected the entire block. Just the pub.

"If there are intruders," Haji says, "they did not arrive by foot."

"Then how?" Kai asks. "You were scanning the neighborhood five minutes ago."

"Five minutes could be all they needed."

"They?"

"IBM-UAWA. Or whoever is acting in their stead."

Dread zitzes through Kai.

Yumi says, "What about Red Shield's guards? Where are they?"

Dee lifts a hand to her earpiece. "I'm getting radio silence. Units 1 through 5 aren't signaling."

" _How_?" Kai says. "Nothing could take 'em out _that_ fast."

"Unless their attackers were not human," Haji says.

"Huh?"

That's when Kai hears it.

Laughter. Prolonged laughter: effervescent and bone-chilling.

 _Familiar._

Kai's muscle groups clench with a déjà vu so profound it bleeds into dread. His eyes meet Haji's. The Chevalier radiates all the stillness of a sphynx. His clawed hand, swathed in bandages, doesn't twitch a muscle. In the war, Kai had learnt to anticipate the opposite reaction …whenever _she_ was near. Each time, Haji's body became a weathervane signaling the winds of disaster.

 _It can't be._

 _Can it?_

The laughter carries on, a musical, maniacal jangle. The walls of the pub soak it up like acid-rain. Not just one laugh. There are dozens of them, overlapping together. Echoing and re-echoing until Kai's skull buzzes with their eeriness.

"What _is_ that?" Yumi hisses, "A choir of witches?"

"I think you mean a gathering," sighs Yuri.

The _click_ of a gun cuts them off.

Kai is loading his M1911 pistol from its hiding place at the mantel. His muscles are strung as taut as his nerves. But his reflexes have gravitated to their natural state: defense and offense. It is like being in old Edo Japan, samurai versus bandits, eyes steady and weapons ready.

 _No_.

It is like being back in the war.

"Yumi. Yuri," he says. "Stay close."

"Kai—what—?"

"Listen to him." Moonlight glosses the contours of Haji's face. But there are shadows behind his shield of calm, the stirrings of something deadly awakening. "Do not let them near you."

"Them?" Yumi says. " _Who_?"

An arm shatters through the window. A pale arm, smooth-skinned and feminine. It is unscratched by the glittering spray of glass. The moment it bursts inside, it snatches for the closest body.

V.

Instead of dodging, V grabs the arm with both huge fists—and _yanks_. A woman slithers through the broken window. Not reluctantly, but with the lissome grace of a cat lured to play. Like a cat, she wears nothing but her own nakedness. Like a cat, she lands neatly on her feet.

A pair of blue eyes glow in the shadows. Laughter unfurls through the pub, a lunatic aria.

Then a _flash_. The woman is gone.

Kai and the others stare. The intruder's movements were too fast for the eye to chart—Chiropteran-speed. But before she had entered and exited Kai's sightline, he saw her face. Saw it, and felt his brain rebel, defaulting on itself and erasing the features to a luminous smudge. He wonders if it is instinct, a protective measure against the bubbling edge of hysteria.

Because what he saw was a girl with a face like Saya's. A girl with shorn hair, and a fine-boned body.

And blue eyes.

 _Whoosh_.

There again. At the opposite side of the room. A silhouette.

Dee swings her flashlight toward it. The bright beam falls on the girl. She is dainty, deceptively lean—all muscle beneath the paleness of bare skin. Her hair is cropped short, like Saya's in highschool. But the similarity ends there. Everything about this girl, from the ripple of unspent motion down her body to the glint of fangs between her smiling mouth, exudes menace.

And those eyes.

They are _blue_.

Kai's heart jerks behind his ribs. He can't make sense of what he is seeing. Yet he knows the others see it, too. They _feel_ it: a coldness that seeps into the bones, their bodies rioting into gooseflesh.

Her presence is unmistakable. A supersaturated species of hunger, malignant as death.

A Queen on the prowl.

 _It can't be,_ Kai thinks. _It can't._

"Jesus," Yumi breathes, "Is that—?"

"Diva," Yuri says. "It's—it's our mo—"

Haji flashes forward, flinging his daggers.

One buries itself in the girl's arm. The other sinks, dead-on, between her breasts. She doesn't flinch. Her eyes— _Diva's_ eyes—hold a daydreamy glaze. Not the million-mile type Kai associates with psychosis. This is different. The liquid flatness of something that has never tasted daylight. Her skin is the same, giving off a queerish glow, like a mushroom sprouted in a damp cellar.

Then she smiles, and shimmies her body. Haji's daggers ooze out of her skin and clatter to the floor. Her wounds—dark smears in the torchlight—close as smoothly as melted glass.

Then she charges.

Kai's body moves in reflex. He raises the pistol and fires. Four brutal shots. Sparks leap off the barrel. The pub's silence is torn apart, concussive echoes colliding off the walls.

The bullets shred through Diva's body. But she doesn't even slow.

Dee grabs Kai's collar and jerks him backwards. They roll across the floorboards before Diva can pounce. At the same time, Kai sees Haji pivot, lashing out with a high-flying kick to Diva's skull. There is vicious _crack_. The blow shatters the orbital bone, her eyeball popping from its socket, a ghastly red-sheened orb dangling like a radish. Diva crashes into the kitchen counter. A shriek like an air-raid siren fills the space.

Not a shriek.

A _laugh_.

The sound feeds on itself—bubbling and burgeoning. It wafts through the pub like a miasma. From the shattered window, three more shapes slither inside. Naked as jaybirds, with eyes the same electrified blue. The moonlight is bright enough to make out the exact definitions of their faces.

Diva's face.

Diva's face on each and every one of them.

" _Shit_!"

Dee grips her flashlight in her right hand, and whips her Magnum out with her left. She fires off a volley of shots. Once, twice, thrice. Five times in total.

Kai doesn't understand why she's emptying her ammo. It takes more than bullets to flatline a Chiropteran. Smoke mushrooms from the Magnum's barrel. But her rounds don't hit the three newcomers' torsos. Each one buries itself—cherries dinging in a slot-machine—into their eye-sockets. Blood spews. The three Divas jerk backward as the bullets jolt through their skulls. They don't yelp or utter a word. Instead, laughter bubbles up in their chests—those same hysterical, overflowing giggles that used to crowd Kai's nightmares in the early years after the war.

A nightmare risen back from the dead.

Kai's frantic eyes meet Haji's.

"What the hell are they?" he says. "Queens?"

Haji shakes his head. "Their scent is different from Diva's."

"Different?"

"They are not pureblood Queens. They seem …manmade."

This jerks Dee's attention away from the sprawled intruders. "Like what? The Corpse Corps?"

Kai's daze of disorientation sharpens into understanding. "That old dude. Akamine. This is what he meant about a blue-eyed girl setting him free. This is what they're doing at Yabuchi!"

"Making an army of Queens."

He glances up. Yumi and Yuri are staring at the bloodsplattered twist of Diva-bodies. Both of them seem uncharacteristically paralyzed. Their eyes are uncomprehending. Horrorstruck.

 _Their mother,_ Kai thinks. _This is their first time seeing their mother._

No.

Not their mother. Meat-puppets with their mother's face.

His one-dimensional revulsion darkens into something with a more adult texture. Anger—not at Diva, but at what IBM-UAWA are trying to do. What they're planning to do with Yumi and Yuri, if given the chance.

"Kai."

Haji's voice is like being dunked in icewater. Kai blinks. The Divas—the three with cored-out eyes and the one tossed against the kitchen counter, are stirring. Their bodies contort themselves upright, strangely spastic, like stop-motion animation. The shrill scarves of their laughter unfurl through the air, gathering mass, accruing menace.

"We have to move," Dee says. "We need back-up."

"We need _Saya_ ," Kai says. "Maybe her blood can take 'em down?"

V takes a deep inhalation. His eyes narrow. "There's more of 'em. Two are still on the roof."

Haji nods. "Take Yumi and Yuri out the back. I will lure them away."

"I'll cover you," says Sachi.

" _Sachi_!" Yuri protests, with a high-pitched waver of panic.

Sachi skims his knuckles fondly across her cheek. "I'll be back before you know it."

"Painted nails and pedicures all the way." Dee nudges Yuri's shoulder. "C'mon. We need to get you someplace safe."

"The villa?" Yumi suggests.

Dee shakes her head. "We don't know if they've ambushed Otonashi too. The teams at Naminoue Beach aren't responding."

 _Shit._

Fear spiders through Kai's chest. His pistol is clammy in his palm. He meets Haji's opaque blue stare, watches his pale line of jaw tighten. Then the Chevalier nods.

"Go," he says. "Head to the safe-house in Nagahama."

"What about Saya?" Kai asks.

"We must trust her to watch herself."

"But—"

" _Go_."

The four Divas are fully healed now. The moonlight refracts off their faces. For the first time, Kai sees the details that make them unlike real Queens. Their eyes burn a peculiar nitrous blue, different from the tungsten brilliance of Diva's or Yuri's eyes. Their jaws unhinge with the abruptness of doors gaping open, lips stretching on each side as their teeth extend to razor sharpness. Their laughter ripples through the gloom: cold, silvery, yet infused with a repetitive pitch, a doll with its string pulled.

 _Puppets,_ Kai thinks again.

 _They're killer meat-puppets._

The closest of the Divas giggles—bubbly and blood-hungry. Then she snaps her jaws and _lunges_.

Haji's dagger-wielding hands flash like lightning, the blades slashing across Diva's throat. In the same motion, he pivots, knocking another Diva flat as she leaps airborne, claws ready and teeth bared.

"Sachi!" he shouts.

The younger Chevalier nods. "On it!"

With incredible speed, he crashtackles the remaining two Divas. The momentum sends them hurtling out the front doors. Hinges snap, splinters flying. They tumble outside, trading blows, the Divas' laughter distorting into something senseless, savage. From the broken window, two more Divas crawl through, nimble as spiders, limbs unfurling with eerie grace. Their eyes cut across the gloom, fixing on Yumi and Yuri.

They pounce.

" _Back_ _off_!"

V blocks their path, ramming them linebacker-style with his massive shoulders. They go crashing into the kitchen. Kai winces, staring at the wreckage of his Dad's pub from a long, long way off. He'd just replaced those kitchen tiles.

Then Dee says, "We gotta move!"

Kai rouses himself. "Yeah."

Hefting his gun, he dodges past the Haji and the two Divas. They are engaged in a deadly ballet: bodies pirouetting and blood spritzing. The Chevalier's knife-skills are superlative. But the Divas have the edge of brute force. In the moonlight, Haji's face and torso are slashed, blood cascading down his suit. Outside, Kai can hear Sachi scuffling with the other two Divas. His yells are muffled by their laughter.

A part of Kai wonders if the Chevaliers will be able to fend their enemies off. The other part of him, beyond the realm of fear, can only trust his gut.

 _Yumi. Yuri._

Their safety is all that matters.

Kai shoulders past the door, letting Dee chivvy Yumi and Yuri outside.

"Vicente!" he shouts. "C'mon!"

The big Chevalier moves after Kai. But one of the little Divas dances toward him on quicksilver feet and loops a brutal hook across his throat. V grunts, staggering back. The Diva follows with a claw swipe, ripping across his chest and shredding muscle and tendon. V growls something incomprehensible and pops her a sharp uppercut that catches her in the chin. It is a crippling blow, but V doesn't protect his rear. The second Diva leaps on him from behind, sinking her fangs into his jugular. V _howls_.

" _Vicente_!"

Kai aims with his pistol, firing off two rounds. One slug buries itself in Diva's shoulder. The other clips her ear. She jerks but doesn't budge.

"Kai!" V yells. "Get the girls outta here!"

"V—"

"Get moving!" His smile is painfully pasted-on. " _Semper Fi_!"

Kai's throat constricts. His pistol feels useless as a toy in his hands. Across the interior, the gore and destruction are elaborate. He can't fully take it in. It is surreal, sickening, like…

Like the war.

 _What was your real face before you were born?_

Kai's panic hits maximum intensity, then redlines into cold purpose. He meets V's eyes, and nods.

Spinning, he takes off after Dee and the twins.

 _Yumi. Yuri._

 _I need to keep them safe._

Racing outside, there is no way he can see the silhouettes of creatures perched on a signboard high above. Creatures with glowing blue eyes.

Watching them.

* * *

 _More drama and trauma in the next installment._

 _Hope y'all enjoyed, and lemme know if something was left unclear!_

 _Review, pretty please! :)_


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